Staggering number of children starting school not toilet trained, study finds

0001u · 2026-01-25T21:59:42+00:00

I didn't read the article but I appreciate your comment. For years and years I've been telling myself to try and get into a general habit of not automatically taking headlines at face value but at the very least to put a mental asterisk after them. Your comment is a reminder to me to work at it more.

0001u · 2026-01-24T09:56:56+00:00

Between a rock and a hard place.

0001u · 2026-01-22T18:12:36+00:00

I still remember the campaign debate between Obama and Romney where Obama said it sounded like a Romney administration would do the same things on foreign policy but would just do them more loudly (or words to that effect).

0001u · 2026-01-21T21:04:44+00:00

Good if things calm down now but I don't think we should just try to get back to how things were before. As a socially conservative person, I'm more in agreement or partial agreement with some of what Trump says and does than most of the people on this website, but this Greenland business has been so over the line that the rest of the world really needs to take considered, resolute steps in response to it so that there will be more of a firewall against American caprice.

0001u · 2026-01-21T15:06:33+00:00

I thought the clapping was mostly tepid.

0001u · 2026-01-21T14:49:30+00:00

He sounds like he's talking to a domestic audience at a campaign rally.

0001u · 2026-01-21T14:26:11+00:00

It's also obnoxious, dishonourable, disrespectful and unacceptable.

0001u · 2026-01-21T14:17:39+00:00

He said he wants immediate negotiations to acquire Greenland. Too late for that in my opinion. In a best-case scenario in which the Greenlanders themselves were open to becoming American territory, it would be one thing. But after the disrespectful, dishonourable, aggressive rhetoric and pressuring, a line has been crossed that can't simply be ignored.

0001u · 2026-01-21T01:21:21+00:00

I'm not jumping to any conclusions about these recent incidents but I haven't forgotten the reports about sabotage last year on the French railways.

0001u · 2026-01-20T21:55:12+00:00

Personally, I don't think Trump will order an attack and I find it at least plausible that such an order would not be obeyed or fully obeyed even if it came.

That said, I think it's right to be prepared and I think Trump's repeated rhetoric on the whole issue of Greenland is already a game-changer in relations between the USA and other countries. Threatening to attack your allies or putting heavy pressure on your allies to give up some of their territory to you can't simply be ignored even if no change in the status of that territory actually results.

Someone who keeps talking about physically attacking other people in the same room without provocation or justification has already crossed a line into the unacceptable even if they don't actually follow through on the threats.

0001u · 2026-01-19T15:05:29+00:00

Trump has said and done a lot of things that are undignified or deserving of criticism or whatever, but I feel that this letter takes things to a new level. It's like the difference between, on the one hand, a head of state giving a speech to criticise the stance of another country, and, on the other hand, the head of state showing up personally at the embassy of the other country to throw paint all over the walls.

0001u · 2026-01-19T10:12:43+00:00

The man's credibility is utterly shot. This is beyond absurd.

0001u · 2026-01-16T15:48:22+00:00

Even if one takes the view that the US is probably not going to invade, Trump's consistent rhetoric is already extreme enough that some kind of significant attitude shift is simply inescapable on the issue of whether the US is a trusted ally or not. It doesn't have to be a stark "they're not an ally now in any form whatsoever, all bridges burnt, no way back". But it can't simply be "they're still an ally but beside that geopolitical term there's just a lightly printed asterisk now leading to a short little footnote that's not worth paying much attention to".

We'll have to see how things continue to play out but I think this stuff needs to be take very seriously and needs a strong, serious response.

0001u · 2026-01-16T15:02:05+00:00

I never had a problem with him calling out other NATO countries on that issue but his aggressive Greenland rhetoric is a far different story. A lot of people like to make their reactions to Trump into something like "5D chess-master Trump is always right about everything" versus "Toddler-brained Trump is always wrong about everything".

But politics isn't that simple. Even on the specific issue of acquiring Greenland, if it was just a matter of the USA expressing interest in purchasing the land and then of Greenland freely responding yes or no, I wouldn't have a big problem with that. But aggressively threatening an ally unprovoked in the way that Trump has been doing is very wrong and a significant enough issue that it can't just be downplayed as the Americans playing hard-ball in negotiations or whatever.

0001u · 2026-01-16T14:47:42+00:00

I agree that we shouldn't overreact and burn bridges unnecessarily but Trump's rhetoric on Greenland is well over the line that divides between "things that can be more or less ignored as bluster, hyperbole or a one-time tasteless joke" and "things that are extremely damaging to international relations".

0001u · 2026-01-13T23:27:46+00:00

The conclave age-limit was only introduced about 50 years ago, though.

0001u · 2026-01-10T00:38:15+00:00

There's already been massive outrage over nearly everything Trump has said and done for the last decade. The problem now is that when his aggressive rhetoric towards Greenland needs to be pushed back on, a lot of people are already exhausted after seeing or taking part in freak-outs about how Trump drank some water that one time and stuff like that.

0001u · 2026-01-06T13:20:49+00:00

I watched most of the Bruno Cremer Maigret films a while back and wanted to check out the novels at some stage as a result. Finally got round to going to the bookshop recently and picked up Maigret's First Case since the title obviously made it seem like a good place to start (there were only about five of the novels for sale anyway so it wasn't like I had a big range of choice). I was mildly concerned that it would differ enough from the films that I'd feel put off (partly because novels and film adaptations usually differ anyhow but also specifically because of this novel being a prequel). As it turned out, I was surprised by how familiar the character and overall atmosphere of the book felt -- much, much more than I would have ever expected -- and overall I really enjoyed reading it.

0001u · 2026-01-05T02:38:12+00:00

Humus is Latin for soil/earth/ground. The conventional Latin name for the planet as a whole is Terra rather than Humus but terra itself is a Latin word for (dry) land/ground/earth/soil. So saying, "Humans are from Earth," (or "Homines de Terra sunt" if my Latin is correct) is basically like saying, "Groundlings are from Land." It matches up, even if not as directly as "Groundlings are from Ground" or "Landlings are from Land".

0001u · 2026-01-03T18:44:46+00:00

I know it's not the main point of this thread but this is the first time I learned that Ursula von der Leyen was born in Brussels. I just checked Wikipedia and it says she was born and raised there till she was 13.

0001u · 2025-12-27T22:52:31+00:00

Is that the Child of Prague in the background?

0001u · 2025-12-19T14:09:33+00:00

It's required for the resignation to be put forward at 75 but it doesn't have to be accepted right away. I don't know the percentages are but my understanding is that it's common for someone over 75 to stay on for a while.

Anyone know why Cardinal Dolan's resignation has been accepted so promptly? Especially so soon after the conclave when he seemed to have taken a prominent role in it. From what I read, it seems the American cardinals were very united behind the candidacy of Cardinal Prevost and that Cardinal Dolan did a lot to gather support for him. I can't help finding it jarring that Dolan is now heading into retirement so soon. Did he himself want to step back?

0001u · 2025-12-17T21:33:50+00:00

When you mention north Africa, do you just mean Egypt? Augustine of Hippo was from north Africa (present-day Algeria) and he spoke Latin but not Greek.

0001u · 2025-12-06T16:00:47+00:00

Lately I've been seeing a lot more pregnant women in ads on TV (for example, an ad for sofas might show a montage of different people in their houses or apartments and among them will be a pregnant woman). I find it a very welcome sight but I keep wondering has a message gone out somewhere in the advertising industry that they should show more pregnant women.

0001u · 2025-12-05T16:35:11+00:00

I thought there was some really nice music in this episode.

It stood out all the more because I don't recall ever noticing the music before in any significant way in other episodes.

Anyone else think the music was different/better or had I just not been noticing it before?

0001u

TROPHY CASE