I note Donald Trump is mistaken about the primary role of the US government, and it's administration. It's not our health and safety. The US government is nowhere charged with securing the health and safety of Americans in the Constitution. Americans must do that themselves. The primary purpose of the US government is to facilitate Americans rule, to be the mechanism by which they rule themselves. The primary role of the government is not to impede that self-governance, to be a mechanism whereby their sovereignty is expressed as fully as can be effected.
I can keep my cat healthy and safe by keeping it in a padded cell and feeding it through a tube. That is not my primary role in providing for my cat. It is to enable my cat to lead a full life as it chooses to, as long as it doesn't make my own life too miserable in the process. I can handle a few bites and scratches, a few plants in my garden dug up, and the like, but I must discourage it from putting me in the hospital by too vigorously attacking me like Cato did Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies.
Let's hope President Trump actually serves the American people by administering the US government so that it achieves it's actual primary role, which is to facilitate our self rule, rather than locking us all into rubber rooms and tube feeding us.
When you say you think the financial incentive to wage war should be diminished, you seem unaware that's the whole point of war. To seize clay that is valuable. To enslave populations that are valuable. Every defense contractor, even those that make belts or socks, make money from war. Just preventing investors from speculating on real estate in war zones doesn't begin to touch the problem. It's a lot bigger and deeper than real estate flippers.
Starmer's doubling down on the UK's policing of public speech and cessation of policing of actual crime does not benefit the people of the UK. A woman publishing evidence of murderous crime sentenced for 9 months and a brutal murderer being released in only 6 months for that crime illustrate UK law enforcement today. It exemplifies Anarcho-Tyranny. The UK government is obviously being used as a weapon to harm the UK population, and if the people of the UK do not regain control of their government, they will suffer more and worse destruction of their civil society.
More than any population outside the UK, America should take careful note. Stallone's remarks reminding Americans of George Washington's action to revolt and create a nation free from the UK government are particularly poignant in light of the 5 Eyes participation of the USA and the UK in reciprocally spying on each the other's populations to avoid prosecution for breaking laws against spying on their own civilian populations. Insofar as such agreement would make the US responsible for the UK attacking it's population, and enabling the UK to participate in surveilling Americans, the US should withdraw from any such data and surveillance agreements without delay.
We are obviously courting disaster by facilitating the participation of American spooks or law enforcement agencies in any part of that weaponization of the UK government against it's civilian population. There is no part or aspect of that polity Americans can find desirable, beneficial, or tolerable in any way. George Washington's memory is besmirched every moment such participation continues.
It would require examination of maps to show that dam removal contributed in any way to the flooding in Valencia. It's a sound hypothesis, but requires demonstrable plausible routes for floodwaters to be directed to Valencia that would have been impeded by the dams that were removed to be superable. A claim that 73% of the dams removed were weirs (that control upstream water levels) doesn't necessarily support their removal contributing to flooding in Valencia, unless their water then flowed to Valencia instead of being impounded.
Dams aren't necessary to create hydroelectric power. There are turbines that can be sited in rivers and generate power without the need to completely block river flow. They are less efficient, because a lot of water flows without turning the turbines, but they can be placed all along the river, and not only where there is a dam. There are also ways to enable fish and other wildlife to travel up and down stream past dams. They are also inefficient, but studies in Oregon showed that without fish ladders 95% of salmon smolts died passing a dam on their way to the ocean. Many hatcheries now truck their smolts downstream of dams before releasing them here.
Thanks!
RE: news roundup