the village idiot

You obviously have a keen eye for detail Gary. I just can't tell the buggers apart.

I thought giraffes were fruit pastilles

No priest is that patient Eggs.

He converted to Catholicism as soon as he left office. As long as he confesses his sins he'll be fine.

The real challenge is reading the articles with a totally open mind. I really have to watch myself with this.

Yes, your honour. That's why I mentioned it was only anecdotal. I wasn't stating it as a fact.

You view the world in such a different way to me that I don't think there's any hope of us finding common ground.

Agree with you on the far left. I consider myself a liberal, but am gobsmacked by the antics of the far left. They seem to have completely lost the plot. I don't think it's fair to lump all those on the left in with the far left, just as I think it is unfair to lump all those on the right with the far right.

This is exactly the evidence I am suggesting you shouldn't use exclusively to determine what is the truth. It is not reliable and extremely limited in scope and depth. We can all form an opinion, but we have to remember that this opinion is based only on what information we have been exposed to. The greater the variety of information you digest from different sources will almost always move you away from either extreme end of a spectrum.

But you do trust Trump's fact checking, which consists of whatever spins out of his head at 3am?

Great story, I love moments with nature like that in life. Totally agree on the meat thing, unfortunately this extends to dairy too which is damned inconvenient. In an ideal world we would all rear/shoot our own meat. Unfortunately this is simply not workable for a number of reasons. Lab grown meat is a fantastic potential solution if you care about animal welfare and planet sustainability. Presumably they could do the same for cow's milk too.

I am itching to find a point of agreement with you Ti, but unfortunately I can't agree with the above either. Surely it is better that your enemies over estimate you, making them less likely to attack in the first place? Attempting to convince your enemies that you are a buffoon is a reckless and bizzare strategy. There are a significant number of people who are telling themselves that Trump's Twitter posts demonstrate utter brilliance, a man with a plan, a deep thinker who knows exactly what he is doing and has humanities best interests at heart. I can't see how they could possibly come to this conclusion, but I sincerely hope they're right.

The trouble is we don't know that things would have turned out any better if he had of acted differently. You are assuming that Obama's actions or lack of action necessarily caused things to worsen. It may be that the situations could now be even worse had he not taken the course of action he did. Sometimes doing nothing to interfere in extremely complex situations may be the best call. It is certainly the case that great care must be taken if intervention is deemed appropriate. Taking great care includes not compulsively mouthing off on twitter.

This is the problem. You are assuming that the action he takes is going to be the right action. It also really, really matters how many, and who's noses he puts out of joint. Not to mention how many environmentally harmful initiatives he puts in place that are very difficult to reverse. I totally agree with the sentiment that the political system needed to change, but it needs to change intelligently. Just going in shouting and shaking it up may be exciting, but it is stupid, selfish and grossly irresponsible and could easily have very dire consequences.

I have no doubt that a lot of media outlets have biases. I watch very little TV so can't really comment on the BBC. From what I understand, all media outlets are being accused of bias in one direction or the other. How can you be confident that you are not brainwashed by the media outlets you plug yourself into? The way we generally form the opinion that something is correct is by referencing it against the preconcieved notions of 'correctness' in our minds. These preconceived notions are generally fairly unreliable and fed by the specific inputs you happen to have been exposed to. This obviously applies to you and me both. The only way to reach true clarity is to try and bypass our internal narrative, and those of others and try to focus on the objective reality of what is actually going on. This is extremely difficult as everything is so complex. Trump appears to operate purely from within his own constructed narrative. He believes this is perfectly reasonable because he is a self confessed genius. This should set all the alarm bells ringing instantly.

No, I'm 40, but good on you for having a guess. As with all situations, things are nuanced. If you insist on going to one extreme or the other you are probably going to end up in the wrong place. (Everything about Trump is good, everything about Trump is bad.) In my view Trump is correct to highlight the obvious link between Islam and terrorism. I think he is wrong to proclaim that he has the answer to the problem. We have a huge problem in the fact that what we want is leaders who have the correct answer to everything, but what we need is leaders who are prepared to admit that they don't know what they can't possibly know but are doing their best to find a workable solution by talking to as many experts as possible. This is not Trump. Different leaders are at different points along this spectrum. Most gravitate towards the 'I know the answer' end. Trump is off this end of this scale. His position does not reflect reality and this is hugely problematic.

There is absolutely no question that Trump lies. You could be impossibly kind to him and say that maybe he believes everything he says to be true, and he just hasn't absorbed the relevant factual information. Either interpretation is a recipe for disaster. Apparently all briefing documents submitted for Trump's attention have to be kept extremely short, and the authors have to periodically insert the words 'President Trump' in order to keep his attention focussed till the end of the document. Admittedly this is only anecdotal, but I can quite believe that it is true. Trump is the master of doing what Ti accuses Obama of having done. Trump says things which he knows will please his support base. He doesn't care whether they are factually correct or not. His supporters like what he says and so label it as true. It fits with the narrative of the world that they have created in their heads.

Help me out here guys!!

I meant in terms of the positions we hold. Our behaviour needs to be sympathetic to our situation. I don't think Obama was perfect either, but what he did realise is that these sociopolitical situations are fantastically complex and delicately balanced. You can't just charge in and 'fix them'. It would be nice to think that the world is simple and that there are simple solutions to all the problems, unfortunately this just isn't the case. Believing and acting as though it is is naive and dangerous.

Are you sitting comfortably? https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html

There is a very, very big difference between you and I and the POTUS. What you or I say in private or on a forum such as this has next to no immediate influence on the world. What the president says privately or publicly (he was in a meeting with other polititians when he said these things) matters a huge amount. Trump seems incapable of moderating his language, and incapable of seeing the need to. This is one of the main reasons why he is not fit to hold the position he does. There is also the fact that Trump's branding of these countries is not a truth claim. It is a blanket opinion that makes no sense when you break things down to specifics. You also (rightly in my opinion) consider that telling the truth is important for society. Why does it not worry you that Trump is a proven compulsive liar? Many Trump supporters seem to think that this is OK, or even that it somehow makes him an even better person. This is crazy when you consider how much power he has. People are being swept along by the show and are not stopping to think. It is terrifying.

I'm not having a go at farmers. I just think we should put a bit more consideration into the life cycle of our meat and view it as more of a luxury than a cheap staple, unless you rear/shoot your own. If everyone visited an intensive pig farm, a mega dairy, an abbatoir and a battery chicken complex I'm pretty sure people would be shocked and cheap meat and dairy consumption would plummet.

I'd pretty much agree with you for the most expensive chicken. These animals have a pretty decent life. Unfortunately a lot of people can't afford expensive meat, and it is not for me to say that they shouldn't eat cheap meat. It is not possible to produce farmed meat humanely at the prices many of us want to pay. I would like to see ethical meat available to all, and cultured meat seems like the perfect solution. People get a bit queesy at the idea of cultured meat, but it has many benefits. It is real meat, just not grown on an animal. It contains no antibiotics, causes no animal suffering and relieves a huge amount of pressure from habitat destruction, fresh water usage, and animal feed mono crops. It takes anywhere from 440 to 2500 gallons of water and 12 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. In the US, 56 million acres of land are used to grow animal feed, while only 4 million acres are producing plants for humans to eat.

Yes, I eat farmed meat too. I firmly believe it to be ethically problematic but I do it anyway. I am really excited by the prospect of lab cultured meat. Once this becomes an affordable proposition we can make huge inroads into some of the biggest problems around animal welfare and the health of our planet.

Yes, great for chicken genes, terrible for chickens.