What have they done to deserve your trust? They started a war that they deny is a war. They told us a year ago they set Iran back a decade. Then they tell us 9 months later they're weeks from a nuclear bomb. I wouldn't trust the warmongers to admit they're child killers.
I haven't said anything about trusting them. I am simply correcting statements about what the US has supposedly "admitted".
It's one thing to say "I think the US did XYZ".
It's quite another to say "It is an objective truth that the US did XYZ, in fact they even admitted it".
Transposed to the Guardian, if they want to write "we think the US did XYZ", they should clearly frame it as an opinion piece. Instead they are writing "it is an objective truth that the US did XYZ" - which is false. That is journalistic malpractice.
It would be journalistic malpractice to avoid reporting on anything that the government does that the government isn't willing to admit publically to doing. It's possible to ascertain facts, even of the actions of the US government, to a level of certainty sufficient to report them as facts, even when the government disputes the facts.
Repeating the IRGC claim that "American forces killed between 175 and 180 people, most of them girls between the ages of seven and 12" without attribution or scrutiny, is not "reporting".
It's fine to be skeptical of the claims of the US government. But the IRGC is also a government - more specifically a totalitarian government built on lies and aggression. To distrust the former while blindly trusting the latter is inconsistent and foolish.
>> Again, the basic facts on the ground are not known
Think for a second WHY that is! They can find and kill the Iranian leaders who will be doing the utmost to conceal their location and yet that can't tell us whose bomb blew up a specific building? Of course they can. They're waiting until people forget and they can final release the result of their 'investigation'.
But I'm noticing that you are only interested in guessing the motives and actions of the US.
Does the IRGC not have motives and agency of their own? Perhaps the explosion was caused by a malfunction of their own missile? Perhaps they lied about children being present? Perhaps they intentionally placed children in a location they knew would be struck? Based on their incentives, doctrine and past behavior, you could make a reasonable case for all of those scenarios.
It's fine to speculate on who did what, and why. But that methodology can be applied in both directions, not just the one that suites your political preference.
Not sure how you could live with yourself if you were building software that was used to kill children. I know tools can be used in ways you can't anticipate but if you're actively supporting the military in their use of it which in my eyes makes you responsible.
At the very least, that should certainly be an option that users can select. And when the user selects a feed algo, it should stay fucking set until that same user actively chooses to change it.
>> If it wasn’t for those jokes would he be remembered anywhere as well?
You’re assuming the jokes make people dive deeper. In reality I know the jokes and didn’t have a clue who he was and never cared enough to find out. The reality is the probably didn’t make much of a difference to how well he or his work was actually known.
It's not a war even if Congress approves it. It's still just "an exercise of the War Powers Act", which is not technically the same thing.
To actually be a war Congress has to declare war. But they passed the War Powers Act so that they wouldn't have to do that.
In theory, the War Powers Act is limited to 60-90 days unless Congress approves funding. Which they may -- a bill to refuse funding failed. Which isn't the same thing, but even if they can't pass the authorization, it's not clear if that actually matters to anybody.
I think the country isn't officially at war without an act of congress, but whether a conflict is a war is probably a property of the conflict and not government declarations of the beligerants or the legallity of their participation.
Anyway, the Department of Whatever its name is needs money.
What a dumb policy in the first place. One of the most successful creative industries in the world and your plan is to bend over for the big American tech companies instead of supporting the people actually making your country money.
This Govt's serious problem is it has fallen hook line and sinker for the "AI" con trick. It thought shafting the creatives a price worth paying for a place on the "AI" gravy train. It still has no idea how deluded it is, so will be looking for an alternative "solution". Perhaps it can sell the UK populace's health data instead. Oh wait...
But isn't it always (or at least lately) like this? Corporations ruling, the small guy paying? I'm aware this sounds very leftie, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.
We're not a serious country anymore. We build very little. We control very little. Three years ago the war in Ukraine broke out causing the energy price crisis and the short term solution was the government paying a portion of everyone's bills. Three years later we're in the same situation again thanks to the US and Israel's warmongering. Are we prepared? No. What's the solution? Freezing the price caps and paying a portion of peoples bills.
In my opinion (not OP), a serious country would look at it's basic national security risks, and work to minimise them.
I'm not talking terrorism, far more basic than that.
Food, Energy, Transport Communications, Manufacturing.
Are you either able to be the provider of any of these if it really came down to it, or are you dependent on a single outside source?
Most countries will be unable to fulfill all of these, but they can mitigate by not being dependent on a single source, maybe working together in a union.
Russia has been an unreliable partner for energy for decades (if ever?), yet the UK yoked itself with them relying on their gas for energy instead of diversifying. We are doing it now but it has been far too late to mitigate the damage.
That's not really true. The UK has run an open economy for almost 200 years and has long had one of the most diverse sets of trading arrangements of any country in the world.
For domestic energy, it has never relied on Russia. Natural gas supplies are a roughly equal mix of domestic production, Norwegian pipeline imports, and LNG imports (primarily from the USA, but with no restriction on switching to other providers if needed). Yes, there was a spike in global LNG prices due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine but that was driven by other countries seeking to replace Russian imports.
The same goes for the other areas you mentioned - food, transport, communications, and manufacturing. All have vast diversity of supply, with robust supply chains. None of them are remotely close to being dependent on a single external source.
Clearly that’s not good enough. We’re still not out of the last cost of living crisis and we’re going into the next one. We should be more self-reliant. Diversity doesn’t work in such an interconnected global economy.
What have they done to deserve your trust? They started a war that they deny is a war. They told us a year ago they set Iran back a decade. Then they tell us 9 months later they're weeks from a nuclear bomb. I wouldn't trust the warmongers to admit they're child killers.
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