O.T. Moody’s Investor Service, might cut the US credit rating

DUGA (NATO: "Steel Yard") the infamous Russian Woodpecker. (now defunct)

Exactly how does the "right" like Russia?

In practice, make America grate again, and again.

For a particularly bizarre interpretation of "right". He good at presenting himself to people who can't do critical thinking - and John Larkin certain ly can't manage that.

It's generally accepted that being "right" involves telling the same story from one day to the next, and that isn't a restriction that Trump is constr ained by.

Religion isn't as effective in making people behave properly as it's propon ents claim. Agnostics can behave well without the crutch of irrational beli efs, and don't go around killing heretics. Atheists have an untestable beli ef in the non-existence of any god, which strikes me as irrational, but the y don't seem to get violent about it.

The left started disapproving of Marx in 1871, when he stopped believing in democracy and started pushing the "leading role of the party".

George Orwell started hating Russian Communism when he was fighting for the left against Franco in 1936 and 1937. They didn't like him much either and eventually accused him of "rabid Trotskyism" but not until he was safely back in the UK.

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d the only remediation technologies available require trillions $$$ investm ent. The idiots are already paying $100B annual just for recovering from ex treme weather damage, and it hasn't sunk in this is an ongoing annual occur rence and not a 100 year event.

That's the kind of opinion you can find in denialist propaganda. A recent s tudy in the Proceedings of the (US) National Academy of Science, but John L arkin doesn't read that - not enough flattery per line - despite the fact t hat peer-reviewed scientific papers are more reliable informants that propa gandists hired by the fossil-carbon extraction industry.

Storms and fires used to be low frequency events. Insurance rates were low in consequence, and you could get insurance.

You don't actually "harden" your house against fires and floods - you build it further away from vegetation, or on higher ground in the first place.

In the Netherlands you make the dykes higher to protect yourself against ev en more improbable high water levels.

The threat is real - as it is with anthropogenic global warming.

Russia is not actually a political threat any longer, but corrupt criminal class that is currently running Russia is even more short-sighted and stupi d than their American equivalents, improbable as this may seem, and they ma y make even more fatuous errors of judgement than even Trump can come up wi th.

Idiots are always dangerous. Having a consistent ideology requires a a cert ain miniumum level of intellectual competence - which doesn't prevent ideol ogues from doing stupid and dangerous things - which makes ideologues somew hat more predictable than unprincipled idiots.

Oh, at the moment Trump is the 'right'. (for better or worse) George H.

You aren't really buying the lefties "collusion" bullshit, are you? I thought you were a lot smarter than that. ...for a lefty, anyway. Guess not.

Trump hasn't got the attention span to like anything - except possibly sex and money, which can offer instant gratification.

He's exactly as right wing as suits his current audience. He's not going to bother to learn the fine details of any political ideology, or anything else.

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Trump hasn't got the attention span to collude with anybody.

The Russians clearly did a lot of work aimed at getting him elected.

They presumably thought that this was a good way of making the US less effe ctive as a geopolitical rival.

Few people I know would argue that they were wrong.

Trump does seem to have had interactions with the Russians that he shouldn' t have, and which will probably get him sent to prison after he stops being president, but collusion implies an implausible level of organisation in t he Trump camp - don't invoke conspiracy when stupidity is an an adequate ex planation.

Naw... Gotta be N. Korea. The people have got to look constantly up-beat and proud there or get shot.

It's already pretty quiet! Precious little in the way of sunspots lately. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if we were heading for another Maunder Minimum. :-(

Other societies, like communists, dumped religion a lot more agressively than europe/USA did. That didn't help.

Western regigion backed off mostly graciously as science began to explain things. Vaccination replaced the Will of God.

Punishment for being successful? That's an interesting concept.

Go for it.

It is about America first - pure nationalism.

I am of the opinion that this was unnecessary - before Trump took over, America was doing pretty well. It had its ups and downs, and there are always parts of any country that are worse off, but on the whole it seemed to be okay. And internationally, it recovered much of political respect that had been lost by that muppet Bush. Then along came Trump, and the rest of the world does not know whether to laugh or to cry, to blame you or to sympathise with you.

He is wrong about far, far more stuff. And more than that, he does not /care/ whether he is right or wrong - he cares only for the effect it has.

You (as a country) had not run low on self-interest. You only started running low when you started believing that self-obsessed git that /told/ you you had low self-interest.

I got the impression that it was more than that - perhaps it is just that such people are louder than the normal populace. But you would know better than me, so I'll take your word for it.

Neither side in such battles think that the others are "true" Muslims. (Remember, of course, that this is another case where the angry, violent, hateful people are a very small but very loud minority. The huge majority of Muslims are happy to live and let live, and want peace.)

It is the same "logic" used between different branches of Christianity. The difference is that in our part of the world (the "West"), we have mostly grown beyond that - Catholics and Protestants no longer burn each other at the stake. But Christian terrorists do commit atrocities in some parts of the world.

The Europeans are. They are. The Democrats here are no different and they're 40% of the population now. ...and increasing.

Yup, that's what we elected him for.

What matters is results. Like peace in Korea maybe. Trump is rude and crude, but the has common sense, namely is not paralyzed by nuance.

That's kind of refreshing.

The money and the jobs and the power and the kids have been diffusing out to the big cities. The richest counties in the USa surround Washington, DC. The coastal elites and Wall Street parasites exploit and mock the struggling farmers and truckers who keep them alive. That has caused some discord.

Some poor farmer can be arrested because his seasonal pond overflows. Nobody from Wells Fargo has gone to jail. People notice things like this.

Sure, some people will do anything to get attention.

The South has changed a lot in the last 50 years.

The masses are paying (through QE and Austerity) for the profligate but well rewarded behaviour of some CEOs.

Quite reasonably, they don't like it.

OTOH, as Churchill noted, the British will put up with anything provided they understand why and feel everybody is feeling the pain.

You think Trump has given peace in Korea? Kim played Trump like a cheap fiddle.

Trump is rude and crude - you got that right. But he is without any common sense, any political sense, any diplomatic, economic, business sense. His background is from being surrounded by sycophants, which has given him an astoundingly over-inflated ego and sense of his own imagined genius. He genuinely believes he s**ts gold, because that's what he has been told all his life. A totally mindless, thoughtless and unwavering belief in your own godhood is clearly a help to getting elected - it is no help in running a country.

I just hope his minders can keep him restrained enough to avoid too much lasting harm (they seem to be managing so far). When he bankrupts his businesses, he can always bully his way into getting more money to try again until one gets lucky and succeeds enough to be sold at a good profit - the same will not happen with America.

Well, it is different - I'll give you that.

Agreed.

But most of your population /are/ living in the cities and the coastal areas, with only a minority being farmers and truckers.

I am not going to argue that your country was perfect before Trump - far from it. But it was not as bad as he has made you think. And his attempts at rolling back the clock may sound good, but they are not helpful.

I'd be happy to see a lot of the top-end capitalists, Wall Street parasites, etc., rounded up and locked away - or at least forced to live with a less obscene proportion of your country's wealth. Unfair division of wealth is the key problem in your country. But Trump and his policies are not doing that - he is working for the benefit of the absurdly rich, not for the benefit of the common people.

That is good to hear. I know an American who campaigned for civil liberties in the American South, and shot (in self defence) a KKK member in the arm - it turned out to be a police deputy. But I think that was probably 50 years ago, to the nearest decade. I hope they can stay in the past.

Unfortunately, Trump has been a great dividing influence in your country

- "divide and conquer" may be a good strategy to get yourself elected, but is not good for the country. I hope you survive him.