Does that count as free speech, or, more generally, free expression?

Is flag burning protected speech? What to know about Trump's order (— BrieAnna J Frank, Bart Jansen · USA TODAY · Aug 25, 2025)

, you can click on your name () to find the older post. The current Gaza situation is a humanitarian disaster. (If I remember right, Biden started putting pressure on Netanyahu.)

, were you thinking of this (poster)?



I'm in. I'm not on board with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Not that anything here is about me, though.

Why has Donald Trump not spoken out about the famine in Gaza? | Inside Story (— Al Jazeera · Aug 25, 2025 · 27m:55s)

As mentioned before, there's more than one problem, ongoing existential threat to Israel, ongoing injustices to Palestinians, ... Apparently, many can't see one for the other.

Trump keeps pulling this one ...

This dire public safety crisis stems directly from the abject failures of the city's local leadership… — Donald J. Trump · Aug 11, 2025

Crime stats in big blue cities are fake. The real rates of crime, chaos & dysfunction are orders of magnitude higher.
Everyone who lives in these areas knows this. They program their entire lives around it.
Democrats are trying to unravel civilization. Pres Trump will save it. — Stephen Miller · Aug 12, 2025

the stats that they gave because they turned out to be a total fraud
the real stats, the stats went through the roof — President Trump calls Washington, DC crime stats a 'fraud' amid crime decrease · WUSA9 · Aug 13, 2025

D.C. gave Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety. This is a very bad and dangerous thing to do, and they are under serious investigation for so doing! Until 4 days ago, Washington, D.C., was the most unsafe “city” in the United States, and perhaps the World. Now, in just a short period of time, it is perhaps the safest, and getting better every single hour! People are flocking to D.C. again, and soon, the beautification will begin! — Donald J. Trump · Aug 18, 2025

What are the supposed real, (magnitude) higher numbers that he's using for comparison?
It's a standard case of "Put up or shut up", especially before doing anything.

Furthermore, he keeps pulling it (msn) and the population, including many politicians, keep tolerating it; where are the responses with potential consequences?
Further furthermore, the number of False or misleading statements by Donald Trump keep increasing, which was record-setting some time ago (also check CNN / Colbert from 2020).
Regress for all to see; I'm sure US adversaries are delighted, and the Trumpists appear oblivious.

they're all funded by the US department of state — Tzeentch

Nope. They have all kinds of funding, some including from the US State Department, the Economist Intelligence Unit mostly from revenue, ... It varies, yet these freedom type results are fairly similar. You can also find methodologies.

Sea-level projections from the 1990s were spot on, study says
^{— Phys.org · Aug 22, 2025}

The "accelerating" part is a downer. (Is that still a word?)

Evaluating IPCC Projections of Global Sea-Level Change From the Pre-Satellite Era
^{— Earth's Future · Aug 22, 2025}

Probabilistic reconstruction of sea-level changes and their causes since 1900
^{— Earth System Science Data · Jul 31, 2024}

How would more moving water in circulation manifest (in everyday life)? Low islands getting smaller seems a safe bet. Low fields becoming lakes? I'm guessing more flash floods in some places.

How public lying can work:

Feb 27, 2014 · Little green men (Russo-Ukrainian War) (— various via Wikipedia)

Feb 26, 2019 · From 'Not Us' To 'Why Hide It?': How Russia Denied Its Crimea Invasion, Then Admitted It (— Carl Schreck · Chizhov, Putin, Shoigu · RFE/RL)

Feb 20, 2022 · Moscow Has No Plans for Aggression, Has Never Attacked Anyone In Its History, Kremlin Spokesman Says (— Ilya Tsukanov · Peskov · Sputnik)

Feb 24, 2022 · Russian invasion of Ukraine (— various via Wikipedia)

Plausible deniability or unactionability for a while, until exposed or otherwise unfeasible, just long enough.
I guess there's no accountability for such lying, apart from distrust perhaps.
(The domestic audience is a bit more puzzling.)
In this case, all on Putin's watch.

, you've repeated that already and have already gotten responses. As to my comment, should I take that as a "Yes" + a "No", then?

, globalization has already happened in whatever ways. Goods-versus-bads is apparently a hot topic in some circles. Blanket globophobia is a wee immature, though.

, nah. But the Kremlin is on it; age-old strategy. Distrust in Trump's US doesn't mean mutual distrust throughout (if that's what you were seeing); in fact, it can lead to increased cooperation/collaboration/bonding elsewhere.

, any relation to Michael?

Leavitt: Countries 'respect the United States again' (— NBC · Aug 19, 2025 · 49s) (via Fox)

All countries around this world actually respect the United States again — Leavitt

Not really. Though some have learned how to entertain him (including Putin by the way).

US popularity collapses worldwide in wake of Trump’s return (— POLITICO · May 12, 2025)

China now more popular worldwide than the US

U.S. Image Declines in Many Nations Amid Low Confidence in Trump (— Pew · Jun 11, 2025)

Low confidence in Trump in most countries surveyed

'Never been lower': Trump's approval among Republicans rapidly declining due to this issue (— AlterNet · Aug 13, 2025)

Economist-YouGov survey revealed Wednesday that President Donald Trump's approval among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters has slipped

The decline is driven by a 17-point plunge among independents, who give the president a 29 percent approval rating. His numbers with the group have never been lower.

and the president is using the might of American strength to demand that respect — Leavitt

Not Putin. They instead continued bombing Ukraine (and went after Trump's coveted minerals earlier for that matter). The clown apparently never learns.

Bad statement. Perhaps not that surprising, though, given the record-setting number of false or misleading statements by Donald Trump (CNN / Colbert from 2020). Additionally, their endless crap could undermine trust for years (and years). Who benefits? Putin's Russia, other adversaries.

, Washington (again)? Are you claiming that the reports are all plain wrong?

, oddly enough, such reports tend to come out of places with sufficient freedom and review. Go figure. You're free to call them a collective of conspiratorial liars. :snicker:

V-Dem Institute, World Justice Forum, MaxRange, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Freedom House, Academic Freedom, Economist Group, Heritage Foundation + Wall Street Journal, Reuters + Oxford, Reporters Without Borders, Transparency International, Foundation for the Advancement of Freedom, CIRIGHTS Data Project

I’m not clicking on your links, bub. — NOS4A2

Too bad.

One day you’ll just have to make an argument. — NOS4A2

Point already made ("Don't be surprised").

People trying to "boycott" peace out of sheer spite for Trump is probably one of the funniest things I've seen on this forum. :rofl: — Tzeentch

That's what you see?

Not supporting the Ukrainians trying (despite getting sh¦t all over again and again), wrestling free from their old northern shadow, standing up against invasion + land-grabbery, sovereignty of Ukraine, calling out Kremlin aggression + bullsh¦ttery, defending democratization, resisting Russification (≠ Russophobia) + Russian regress/oppression/colonization, whatever ...?

Hm.

You think Orbán ^{(2024, 2025)} and Fico ^{(2024, 2025)} are down with trading Hungary and Slovakia for Ukraine?
A territory swap, an exchange, perhaps accompanied by something else?
"The moment of truth, sir, and sir." :)
The Kremlin circle might, maybe; well, surely they would consider it, neighbors right in the middle of Europe (yummm), though still at some distance from Transnistria and the coveted Odesa.
Trump might eye a few Mar-a-Hungakia business opportunities (Putin can remove obstacles :up:).
Hungary and Slovakia would be leaving the EU and NATO, presumably.
The rest of Europe might object; well, to Russian forces moving in at least.



Now back to the real world, apologies for the distraction.

Some of these predictions are (still) accurate enough, others are somewhat off:

Vladimir Putin Could Be Laying a Trap (via yahoo)
^{— Jonathan Lemire · The Atlantic · Aug 12, 2025}

Speaking of freedom, , here's a list from higher to lower:

▸ Norway, Australia, United States, South Korea, Singapore, Russia, North Korea

• Interactive map

• Bertelsmann Stiftung Transformation Index (focuses on change/trajectory, part of the picture)

Don't be surprised when there are objections to Trump's circus helping the proliferation of the lower.

EDIT

Can't distinguish the governance of, say, Solberg and Putin? Lincoln and Stalin? Macron and Mussolini?
Well, if you can't differentiate, then that's on you (or on cognitive/intellectual inadequacy).

, that makes it 20 years before the new tsar broke their own law along with the agreement you mention.
Add Trump's Crimea Declaration of 2018, and whatever.
So, rules out the window, and orange-flavored appeasement?
Doesn't look promising.

Anyway, there's this tedious list of oddities on Trump and Putin's relationship.
Trump wrote "STOP" to Putin, and "CRAZY" about Putin, on his platform, and then...? Back to the old buddy-appeasement.
Bizarrely, after one of Medvedev's ramblings, Trump sent two submaries.
Mentioned list of oddities, Fiona Hill, various Kremlin (and a higher number of other Russian) comments/reactions, volte-faces like the above — taken together — is evidence to suggest that Trump has a hole in his understanding, or something.

The Trump circus has seen some incompetence.
RFK Jr might be the clearest example.
Witkoff is another (via upolitics, via thedailybeast, Niall Ferguson via instagram or facebook; via cnn or tass).
...

:up: to Melania if the reports are accurate:

Melania Trump Letter to Putin Handed Over in Alaska (— Newsweek · Aug 16, 2025)

Trump

• cut tracking of kidnapped Ukrainian children
• blocked aid approved by Congress
• disbanded sanctions enforcement
• opposed oil price cap at G7
• paused intelligence sharing to Ukraine
• voted against a UN resolution condemning the aggression
• provided Putin a boost in Alaska, red carpet too
• re-confirmed his odd affinity for Putin

Something's off, but what? Personality quirk or something?


Artwork by Alesha Stupin

FYI, here's how some Russians took the Trump-Putin meeting:

Had a successful summit in Alaska...
If you read "between the lines":
1) Ukrainians and Europeans need to screw themselves now, if they have enough money and will, and the United States is no longer their helper
2) The bosses obviously coordinated the road map of events for the convergence of the two countries
3) among other things, the United States will reduce its armed presence in Europe
4) the key issues of the convergence will be large joint economic projects, perhaps the creation of a joint infrastructure fund of direct investment for this purpose, and on the Russian side the contribution will be made by frozen assets (interesting what Europeans can do about it )
5) Since Trump is not "out of control", Russia will help slowing down Israel's ambitions
Next meeting in Beijing in two weeks with a little — Michael Getman · Aug 16, 2025

Александр Рудько and how do you imagine the "destruction of the United States"? — Ola Ivanova · Aug 17, 2025

Оля Иванова Civil war, the overthrow of the elites and 50 independent states as a result — Alexander Rudko · Aug 17, 2025

Not much new I guess...

Trump could trigger a financial crisis in Russia — if he wants to — but has backed off from his threat of ‘very severe consequences’
^{— Jason Ma · Fortune · Aug 16, 2025}
Trump to back ceding of Ukrainian territory to Russia as part of peace deal
^{— Edward Helmore, Pjotr Sauer · Guardian · Aug 16, 2025}

, "Leave no one behind" has taken a new meaning under Trump: fire specialists, hire loyalists.

Musk later turned less loyal, it seems. :grin:

, for a while, I was waiting for DOGE to raise cases of fraud and crimes, like they advertised, with much cheering from the Trumpists, but I gave up waiting. Do you know what (if anything) has materialized?

:D



(please delete if inappropriate)

I continue to be impressed by the amount of gymnastics to try making sense of such religious text/creed.

Way back in school, we were doing formal proofs, so we were given exercises and their answers, and had to fill in the proofs, "Solve this-and-that", except one of the answers was intentionally wrong. One student then kept retrying until they got the given, but wrong answer. I don't recall how many sheets of paper they used, just that they also arrived at the right answer. :)

Wouldn't be the first time anyway ...

Putin’s warlord ally flying migrants into Europe (via yahoo)
^{— Joe Barnes · The Telegraph · Aug 9, 2025}

Not the only kind of hostility (has come up before in the thread). Nice peaceful people, eh?

, I'm not sure it's so ... "non-mysterious". ;)

It's not like scientific efforts to reconcile quantumatics and relativity, which are inherently open to something entirely different. Reality is to tell its own story, if you will.

The Jews don't put much divine stock in Jesus; he wasn't the Messiah according to them. Christians call Him God. Muslims say He was another prophet, superseded by Muhammad, and that Christianity has been polluted. I guess the Mormons roughly want to align with the Christians, but the Catholics (in particular) disown them. These are parts of the Abrahamic storylines and things that adherents believe and proclaim.

Malevolent vs. benevolent dispositions and conservative political ideology in the Trump era
^{— Craig S Neumann, Darlene A Ngo · Journal of Research in Personality · Jul 21, 2025}

:D

^{This Study Finds a Chilling Link Between Personality Type and Trump Support (— Tudor Tarita, Mihai Andrei · ZME Science · Jul 30, 2025)}

I guess no one wanted to take up Hanover's comment?

Yes, that's something of the idea. — Leontiskos

The perennialists sometimes bring up the parable of the blind men and an elephant.
Might be better suited for pluralism.
A conjunction of religious faiths does not leave much behind anyway.

Did Trump accomplish something...?

U.S. secures strategic transit corridor in Armenia-Azerbaijan peace deal (— Steve Holland, Ross Colvin, Lincoln Feast · Reuters · 2025 Aug 7)

Naturally, it's to be called "The Trump Route". :D

Maybe Gamaleya will get foreign investors:

Cancer cure? Russia commences human trials of revolutionary personalized cancer vaccine (— The Economic Times · Aug 2, 2025)

RFK Jr. announces end to some mRNA contracts, including for flu, covid (— The Washington Post · Aug 6, 2025)

Did Moscow get hit by a heatwave or something?

The children of Severomorsk are told that neighbouring Nordic countries support Nazism
^{— The Barents Observer · 2025 Apr 15}

Moscow threatens to DESTROY Europe: nuclear blackmail, calls for war, and strikes on NATO
^{— UATV English · 2025 Aug 6 · 9m:18s}


We want Ukraine, as a state, to cease to exist [...]
^{— Bezpalko Bogdan Anatolievich via Visioner · 2025 Aug 7 · 1m:57s}

Seems clear that all this...stuff is for a domestic audience.

The Cathars believed that Jesus was pure spirit, not a physical human. But, they were run over, so their faith was largely stomped out.

, I just meant that where a mystery is accompanied by contradiction, you can derive anything; that's the principle of explosion.

, watch out for explosions.

sets are ultimately impossible — Fire Ologist

They're not.
(I'm assuming you're referring to naïve set theories.)
There are axiomatics that are free from the paradox you suggest.
I'm not sure I'd call it a mystery as such. :)

Apparently still going strong. Can be done in the right circumstances.

The world’s first solar-powered train in Australia (— Bridgestone Corporation · Jun 2019)
Discover World-First Solar Train in Byron Bay (— Elements of Byron · Apr 2023)
Byron Bay solar powered train (— Clean Energy Regulator, Australian Government · Sep 2024)

, this story? :D

Trump orders termination of labor statistics official after jobs report and downward revisions (— Fox · 2025 Aug 1)
Trump removes official overseeing jobs data after dismal employment report (— AP · 2025 Aug 1)
WATCH: ‘I think their numbers were wrong,’ Trump says after firing BLS head over jobs report (— PBS · 2025 Aug 2)
Trump defends firing labor statistics chief after weak jobs report (— The Hill · 2025 Aug 3)

I guess the numbers for the next few years will be Trumpified, unreliable/untrustworthy.

, agaigain: an effect they can have is you (mis)understanding them.
(and, beforehand, light, sound, or something, whichever doesn't matter much, also has an effect on you)

@NOS4A2, how do (or might) you learn new stuff and correct mistakes? "Move! Car!" never has any effect on you? — What did you make of it, if anything?

If you "take a cue from the environment", then it's already had an effect on you.

The claim still isn't that words/sentences are the cause, but rather that they can have an effect.
(responding to something else suggests misunderstanding)
Generalizing and objecting to that instead misses the point.

As an aside, would the big bang count as a cause in your book?

(still not seeing much to "set this out and how it's contrary to the above")

This is fun. — AmadeusD

:grin:

@NOS4A2, how do (or might) you learn new stuff and correct mistakes? "Move! Car!" never has any effect on you? (still not seeing much to "set this out and how it's contrary to the above")

in regards to Gaza and Ukraine — Mikie

Here's a poster. I'd include Hamas.

, I don't think it's a concluded story. I guess we'll see.

New EU Russia curbs may bolster Indian oil refiners' reliance on traders
^{— Nidhi Verma, Mohi Narayan, Trixie Sher Li Yap, Florence Tan, Tony Munroe, Jan Harvey · Reuters · Jul 21, 2025}

Exclusive: Indian state refiners pause Russian oil purchases, sources say
^{— Nidhi Verma, Philippa Fletcher · Reuters · Jul 31, 2025}

Besides, Europe pretending "business as usual" sends the wrong message.

, I'm not seeing much to "set this out and how it's contrary to the above".

Anyway, you read (hear, feel) the sentences by light (sound, touch), which is one effect. You may then understand or misunderstand them, which is another effect. From there on, you may or may not act accordingly; it's not that you're necessarily compelled to subsequently act in a particular way (though some may be compelled to panic in some cases). "Move! Car!" Either way, they've already had an effect on you; otherwise, it's doubtful we'd be language users. Nothing new or controversial here; over and out unless something comes up.

, it seems like something is going on, but it's not clear what ...

Pam Bondi ends FBI effort to combat foreign influence in U.S. politics (— NBC · Feb 6, 2025)

Trump administration retreats in fight against Russian cyber threats (— Guardian · Mar 1, 2025)

Carlos Giménez (Homeland Security committee member) said on Mar 3, 2025, that he didn't know why Hegseth ended these cyber efforts.

Weird. Trump's people have lost sufficient credibility that they'd need clear evidence by now. I wouldn't underestimate incompetence in the Trump regime, though. I wouldn't let it distract from the Epstein case, either. Meanwhile, the Scots kind of "welcomed" Trump. :)

Well, she's not holding back, and also comments on ABC, Zuckerberg, WSJ:

Elizabeth Warren on Colbert ‘Late Show’ Cancellation: Is the Paramount Trump Payoff a Bribe?
^{— Elizabeth Warren · Variety · Jul 23, 2025}

:D

Scottish newspaper headline about Trump visit referred to him as 'convicted US felon'? (...)
^{— Cindy Shan · Snopes · Jul 25, 2025}