mistermack

Nothing really, just that the supreme court has been political for a very long time.

Oh yes, that's ok then. Jefferson certainly didn't feel bound by it, as he owned 600 slaves in his time. And fathered a few as well.

Nice constitution. All men are considered equal.

Stop press ! Supreme court rules that you can beat your slaves as much as you consider necessary : https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/60/393

You think that they can read Putin's mind??? Yes, I am unfamiliar with the mind-reading technology. Anyway, the west had their choice, and they made it. Presumably the world is now a better place. Years ago, just after Glasnost, the Russian leadership made a serious proposal that Russia should be part of NATO. That was rubbished. We are now living with the consequences. Ronnie Reagan had to ignore all of the advice of his generals and national security advisers to do a deal with Gorbachev. They thought he was an idiot. Lucky he was. Shame he wasn't still around a month ago.

Exactly !! Proper judges wouldn't need to be representative of the country, because they they would make their judgements IN SPITE OF their own political leanings.

I think that there's a lot that hasn't come out about this event. I'm pretty sure that the western leaders were told weeks ago by Russia through the back channels that Russia would take drastic action if it didn't get a deal. They couldn't say that publicly, because any deal would be rubbished in the media as a deal forced under threat. That's the same reason the Russians kept saying they had no plans to invade. No deal would be possible, if they said otherwise. (although the Russians have never cared at all about the truth of public statements) Before this kicked off, I was wondering how the western leaders could be so sure that Putin would invade. Yes they could see the build up, but had no way of knowing what he would decide to do. But they kept repeating that they knew he would invade. Being informed by Russia through the back channels seems to me the only way they could be that certain. I said three or four weeks ago that I wished that NATO would just do a deal, and that Ukraine would be a ticking time bomb in NATO. What would it have cost them to do a deal? They could easily sell it as a move towards a more stable wold, a noble gesture, and in any case Uraine was never really going to join NATO in the next fifty years. It was all about egos and face. The US was still smarting over their loss of Crimea, which they thought they had won, when they pulled off the coup in Ukraine. But the world would be a much safer place if they HAD done a deal. I think they were fully informed of Putin's next move, and chose that route. Either that, or they thought he was bluffing. Either way, they fucked up big-time.

I'm not saying they are black and white automatons, I'm just pointing to the differences between the UK supreme court, and the US one. The political nature of the US court is widely acknowledged. They may like to maintain the fiction that it's otherwise, but it's truly not. It's like the emperor's suit of clothes. Everyone knows he's naked, but they all talk and behave as if he's not. No supreme court judge would ackonowledge that they were picked for their bias, but everyone knows that they were. The proof of the pudding is the furore that kicks up with each appointment. Everyone knows why.

That becomes academic, when they are picked for their political leanings. There were plenty of judges in Nazi Germany, and in Apartheid South Africa. North Korea has judges aplenty. They don't just "judge". They judge in a pre-determined way.

No, you've completely missed the point. The US Supreme Court is a POLITICAL body, they decide based on their own leanings, not on their expert legal opinion of what the law was designed to do. That's what makes them in effect law makers, rather than law interpreters. Everybody knows that that's what they do, even though the fiction is maintained otherwise. Presidents are appointing judges for their political leanings, that says all you need to know. Their title is judge, but they are really politicians, in effect the third house, and probably the one with the most power.

Well, I thought that was obvious. In disputed cases, the supreme court decides what the law will be.

In disputed cases, other people might write the laws, but the supreme court make it law.

People extol NATO membership as a guarantee of security, but you have to remember that it also makes you a legitimate target. Join NATO and you will immediately have Russian, and possibly Chinese nuclear weapons pointing at you, in the event of just one NATO country picking a fight. I live nine miles from the GCHQ headquarters in the UK ( Government Communications HQ ). I'm not a great fan of NATO, they might well get me killed one day along with my family. That's the hidden benefit of NATO membership.

They should change the name of the US to the "Not-very United States" since they all seem to want different laws from the other states. That's why they need a political supreme court, making laws. In the UK, the courts are there to "interpret" laws made by parliament, not to make new ones. The only exception to that is when parliament gives away power to European courts, and the role of our own supreme court becomes just a pathetic guessing game of what the relevant European court would do.

Modern Ukraine was created peacefully in 1991 by the Russian leadership. On it's creation, it declared itself a neutral state. Since the current leadership has repeatedly stated it's desire to join a military alliance whose only reason for existence is to fight Russia, I can see why the Russians should take exception to it. Ukraine was part of the empire of the Russian Czars for hundreds of years, and part of the USSR for about seventy years. It's been a country for just thirty years. Since they are keen to abandon their agreed neutrality, I don't blame Putin for kicking off.

Ironic, since they are referring to an era when countries were established by war and conquest.

Even that would be a huge bonus to a country like Namibia. People living, spending, drawing salaries and paying taxes would all boost the economy. And the infrastructure installed would be a benefit, not just to the plant. Most projects like this are financed by international capital. There's nothing unusual or particularly wrong about it. I didn't know that you have to desalinate water first, before producing hydrogen. But if you do, then that's just an overhead that has to be met. There may be local benefits to having a desalination plant installed and paid for by the hydrogen industry. The big IF is whether the market in hydrogen is big enough or mature enough to make this a goer. There are lots of places in the world that have wind, sun and sea water so if it is, you would expect other places to start up too.

More people are killed by dogs. And trees. Sharks are more scary than trees, because they have lots of pearly white teeth.

On a slightly different note, does anybody think that this would be happening if Donald Trump was still president? I don't think it would. Not because he's got any kind of good qualities. But the reverse. If you were Putin, you would think twice about it, with a loony like Trump loose in the White House. It would be impossible to predict what he would do. Especially since he would change his mind daily, depending on who was bending his ear. Putin might also be hoping to affect US politics by doing this, as a second prize. Biden is going to be easy to attack on foreign policy after this, however it turns out. Putin might be putting Trump back into the White House as we speak.

Rama, your repeated posts seem to be about a totally different idea of reincarnation from the meaning that I was holding. You made me look it up, because I thought maybe I had it wrong. BUT, the wikipedia page has it just as I remembered. This is from the top : Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death.[1][2] Somebody's got it wrong, and it appears to be you. What is a non-physical essence? Obviously, a spirit. What is the notion of a new life, but a comfort blanket to ward off the fear of real death. ( ie, ceasing to exist ). You keep saying that there is only one world. But gloss over countless new lives that the notion of reincarnation promises. We all have that daydream, to live again and do it all so much better next time. That's just human wishful dreaming, being worked up into religious teaching.

Really? What exactly is the link from one life to the next? It's not genetic, it's not material, so all you are left with is a spirit of some sort. So you are conjuring up an imaginary spirit that hops from animal to animal. That requires a spirit world of some sort.

They don't teach that to the little children, though, do they, when they begin their indoctrination. They teach the doctrine as FACT, that's why it's child abuse. Just because it's a religion forum, that's no reason to treat it with respect that it doesn't deserve. I don't demand respect for my atheism, and if I posted on a religious forum, I would expect some pretty vigorous reaction. Reincarnation is magic, and miraculous, and totally ludicrous without the god concept. And totally without evidence of any sort.

The logistics of a space elevator make it a pretty unrealistic prospect. It's an attractive idea, but the materials don't exist to build one, as yet. The very best modern materials would be far too heavy, and the forces imposed on it by the weather would also rule one out, here on Earth, and probably Mars too, to a lesser extent. It would be less of a challenge on the Moon, but then, taking off from the Moon by rocket isn't much of a challenge either. On the Moon, it would be feasible to fire materials up into orbit from a big gun, or using a linear electric accelerator up an inclined track, the lack of drag and low gravity would make it feasible. People could lift off more gently in a small rocket, like the Lunar Astronauts did.

This is just made-up babble. Somebody's verbal rambling. Along with the rest of it. Where is the EVIDENCE for any of it? If you believe stuff just because you are told it, then you are acting like a five-year-old. That's what religious people do, they keep the religious compartment of their brains in a permenant child-like state, just accepting what they are told. It's a triumph of wishful thinking. It's so much more cosy and attractive than reality.

In Iceland, you can't be called Zoe. Or Zelda. Or Ariel. Or Ezra. In fact, you have to choose your baby's name from an approved list. True fact.