SpankyMcFarland

Hold on. I said, 'at some point', not right now. I have some idea what the current crowd are like but they are old. Let them die off. The alternative to peaceful change is violence. How much of that are you ready to prescribe for the inhabitants of that country?

Although the current unrest in Lebanon and Iraq is primarily a reaction to long-standing failings by those states, it also points to serious interference by Iran in the internal affairs of their neighbours. I was particularly encouraged to see sunglasses and make-up on the faces of Shi'ite protesters in Karbala, of all places - one signal that these brave women are following the same path as their Iranian sisters in embracing modernity. My hope for Iran is that at some point the regime sees the game is up and has leaders who love their country enough to accept this and retire to Qom. Having a religious leader like Iraq's Sistani who sees his role as primarily a spiritual one would assist considerably in this transition. Of course, the army could intervene and install a dictatorship for Lord knows how long but I remain optimistic that the underlying trend there is towards secularism and liberty.

I can’t imagine that many Iranians living in Iran welcome sanctions. They give the West and its supporters in the country a bad name and the regime an excuse for even more drastic measures against dissent.

Is this guy a liberal who cares only about gender dysphoria? Paleontologists estimate that before the global spread of humankind the average rate of species extinction was one species per million in each one- to 10-million-year interval. Human activity has driven up the average global rate of extinction to 100 to 1,000 times that baseline rate. What ensues is a tragedy upon a tragedy: Most species still alive will disappear without ever having been recorded. To minimize this catastrophe, we must focus on which areas on land and in the sea collectively harbor the most species. https://eowilsonfoundation.org/the-8-million-species-we-dont-know/

Countless plant and animal species (certainly thousands, perhaps millions) will be destroyed in these fires before we even identify them. There are those who are bothered by such wanton vandalism and those who are not.

Given that none of us have another planet to go home to (although you wouldn’t know that here), at some point we are going to have to work together to protect this one. Countries will get serious about fighting climate change when the consequences become sufficiently unpleasant.

Pervertion sounds interesting.

Do Republicans require a Trump confession before they consider this conspiracy to be real? As is known from every gangster movie and Michael Cohen’s testimony, the boss talks in a code to protect himself. We have been treated to a parade of neutral witnesses saying essentially the same thing - the plot extended right into the senior reaches of the Trump administration. The only plausible defence is that the offences are not sufficently serious to merit impeachment and I expect Mitch and his friends to ignore Trump’s nonsense about a perfect call and take that line on the Senate floor. The whole thing is a waste of effort seeing how it will end up. A vote of censure would have been a better move.

Sanctions are a blunt instrument that tend to affect ordinary people far more than the government one is targeting, and encouraging the populace to rise up will get a lot of them killed. Like China, Iran is an ancient state that has known authoritarian rule for thousands of years. Those habits will not be changed by foreigners. Reform will probably take decades and the ruling elite will have to die off first.

Does any sensible person defend the tweets at this stage? Right through the trials of his associates Trump kept up the commentary, encouraging them to lie. In many European countries the head of government doing that would have led to an immediate mistrial. In the current hearings he has repeatedly attacked the credibility of witnesses testifying about his own actions. It is extraordinary.

I have been hearing this complaint for thirty years. Nothing prevents it in the British system so it just gets worse. Freeland has been excellent by any standard, getting CETA done and NAFTA almost there. She’s as capable as any minister in Harper’s team and would make a good PM. Philpott was highly competent and her departure on a point of principle was a big loss.

We are facing decades of difficult negotiations with countries that have many reasons not to trust us, and many of them have modest per capita emissions right now. Starting with an honest and comprehensive analysis of how we got here sounds like a solid foundation on which to build trust.

This is like discussion of the debt in the US, a perpetual matter of concern for the party out of power. Harper and his PMO were notorious for micromanaging ussues. The other day, his old bud Flanagan remarked how Scheer isn’t feared enough within the party like Harper was.

I don’t see why any responsible person would be unwilling to admit our role in the problem the world faces today.

We hear about taking responsibility for one’s actions from the right all the time. At least acknowledge what has happened and what we have already done before blaming others. As somebody who lives in an oil-producing province, I’m not saying we should abandon oil but let’s come up with some decent arguments.

Two key components are per capita output and population size. I don’t think anyone can accuse the PRC of not taking population growth seriously. In South Asia, results have been much less impressive, with Bangladesh, of all places, managing the best reduction. Sub-Saharan Africa is a big worry in this regard. Empowerment of women may be one of the most effective measures in cutting family size.

What about the US at number 2? The West has been pumping excess greenhouse gases upwards for over two centuries. India’s per capita output is modest. South Park will have to do a new song, ‘Blame India’.

The fact that the Chisholm fire of 2001, a significant event in global megafire history, is not better known in Canada says a lot about our real level of collective concern for climate change:

When did the Cabinet last matter? This concentration of power in the PMO has been going on for decades.

That’s an odd way to spell honour under the circumstances and the Queen won’t last forever. Our future heads of state will probably not be as popular.

Charlie is a bit weird and the whole thing with Di and the mistress was deeply 19th century but we could easily be facing the prospect of a King Andrew now if things had been different on the birth order side and there would be nothing we in Canada could do about it. Heads of state are much more scrutinized than they used to be and random individuals from one family are rarely the best placed to survive such scrutiny.

She’s not going to live forever, though, and it’s just dumb luck that somebody like Andy isn’t next in line. This is a serious design flaw with monarchies.

It’s a pity that Jo Swinson, the LibDem leader and supporter of Remain, wasn’t invited to the leaders’ debate with the pro-Brexit BoJo and Brexit-ambiguous Corbie.

Most sociopaths are personable. Andrew failed to stop seeing Epstein even after his conviction. Epstein had a team scouting to recruit vulnerable girls at schools under false pretences. I think anybody with teenage female relatives should be able to understand the serious problem here. Andrew made a massive mistake doing this interview. His reputation is ruined at home and abroad, and he may face questioning by the FBI.

Randy Andy is making quite a name for himself these days with some amazing explanations of his relationship with Epstein. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/17/the-guardian-view-on-prince-andrew-entitled-obtuse-and-shamefully-silent-over-epstein-victims The problem with royals y’see is that they’re just too darn honourable: "But at the time I felt it was the honourable and right thing to do and I admit fully that my judgement was probably coloured by my tendency to be too honourable but that's just the way it is." His pizza alibi has already sparked many replies: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10362565/pizza-express-woking-flooded-fake-reviews-prince-andrew/