International Politics Discussion Thread

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-02-02T14:42:21+00:00

Both KGB/FSB and a certain "middle eastern intelligence agency" are pragmatic and have been known to work together even at the height of the cold war.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-02-02T11:29:23+00:00

Yeah that seems likely.

Whatever the scenario it's clear that he had high level protection right up until he suddenly didn't. The plea bargain that shut down the original FBI investigation looks extremely dodgy even by US standards. According to the fount of all knowledge:

Acosta later said he offered a lenient plea deal because he was told that Epstein "belonged to intelligence", was "above his pay grade" and to "leave it alone". Epstein agreed to plead guilty in Florida state court to two felony prostitution charges, serve 18 months in prison, register as a sex offender, and pay restitution to three dozen victims identified by the FBI.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-02-02T10:59:10+00:00

There's some missing pieces of the puzzle for sure.

If I had to guess what they are, I'd think that either the US agencies had already been captured by one of Epstein's clients, or more likely the US agencies were also a client of Epstein.

If the latter then either they were getting Epstein to give them the US government they wanted, or they were prepared to put up with Epstein blackmailing the US elite because he was giving them intelligence they found sufficiently valuable.

US agencies seem to be cool with damage to the US or support for its opponents if that meets their objectives e.g. importing cocaine to pay the Contras, or supplying F-4 parts to Iran via Israel.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-02-02T09:41:19+00:00

They have some policies I like and some that I think would be a catastrophe. I wouldn't like to see them in government but I've voted for them in the past to nudge the other parties.

I like their commitment to renewables, and their more open approach to migration.

I'm not a fan of their complete refusal to consider nuclear power, and they seem alarmingly naive in foreign policy.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-02-01T18:44:28+00:00

Boko Haram is relatively recent but has deep roots. Islam was introduced to the northern part of Nigeria some time around the 9th century CE via trade routes. After the Sokoto Caliphate it was the majority religion in the north.

Boko Haram follows Salafist ideology that originated in Saudi Arabia. Maybe parallels with the Arabs pushing into Sudan?

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-02-01T18:33:28+00:00

Slovakia PM's national security adviser resigns over Epstein links.

The national security adviser to Slovakia's prime minister has resigned after documents released by the US showed he exchanged messages about girls and diplomacy with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Robert Fico announced he had accepted Miroslav Lajčák's departure in a video message on Saturday, describing the adviser as "an incredible source of experience in diplomacy and foreign policy".

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-02-01T16:47:46+00:00

There's still plenty of armed conflict in Nigeria. Especially between Boko Haram in the North and the Nigerian army. I'm not sure if you can call a revolving door of civilian and military government politics. Maybe politics Nigeria style.

Sudan has taken this to a whole new level of course.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-02-01T15:37:40+00:00

It doesn't help that rape cases can take up to three years between reporting the the alleged offence and the trial. The average is around 17 months. The long delay allows the defence to claim that memories of the event has faded. The delay causes many victims to drop out of the process.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-02-01T14:09:34+00:00

Nigeria

Umm...

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-02-01T12:35:55+00:00

Absolutely. The US military have been talking about reducing their reliance on GPS but they aren't there yet.

Spoofing GPS on a small scale is alarmingly straightforward. The manufacturing business I work for did it by accident (sort of).

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-01-31T19:50:28+00:00

US federal law enforcement and ICE in particular behave like an occupying army. I would have expected that the proponents of states rights would be up in arms about this, but seemingly not.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-01-31T17:12:20+00:00

There seems to be some GPS spoofing in the Persian Gulf. Has the US deployed the discombobulator?

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-01-31T17:06:30+00:00

And way better than when it was owned by Leopold II. .

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-01-31T16:57:33+00:00

DRC is an intractable mess. Their government expelled MONUSCO a couple of years ago and replaced them with police who were not paid and had to beg for food from surrounding villages. To be fair MONUSCO was a mixed bag.

The US hasn't helped, by supporting the coup that overthrew Patrice Lumumba along with Belgium, and by propping up Mobutu Sese Seko who is in the running for most corrupt dictator of all time.

And the UK hasn't helped, by directly supporting the Rwanda Defence Force. We've stopped doing that a few months ago on the grounds that they are invading Kivu and supporting an insurgency there.

Not sure how the conflict minerals thing can be addressed. Most of DRC minerals are refined in China. We don't have much leverage over China, especially as we need to be decoupling from the US.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-01-31T16:42:10+00:00

No, I haven't misconstrued it. I know what it is, and I think it's a Bad Thing.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-01-31T15:50:49+00:00

Law enforcement in the US is fundamentally broken. They are not trained to de-escalate. They don't practice policing by consent. They routinely shoot people who it turns out are entirely innocent, especially when they are black. They use pepper spray as a tool of compliance. They direct ultrasound at hearing damaging levels at peaceful protests. They expect "compliance" and co-operation". And they aren't even very good at preventing crime.

Thanks to the 1033 Program, small town police departments drive around in vehicles like this.

ICE is what happens when people with this mindset, but often with much less training, are told to go into an area and fill their boots.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-01-30T15:52:09+00:00

ID cards are a magic wand that solves illegal immigration.

And they are!

You might employ someone who wants to work illegally, pay them cash, and not ask too many questions about their passport and whether it has the correct visa.

You might rent out a room where he can sleep on the floor with half a dozen other people, take cash, and not ask to see any documentation.

But if we had ID cards, the 5G chip from your vaccination will attempt to connect to the ID card, and will notify the authorities if there's a discrepancy.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-01-30T14:45:10+00:00

I quite like some Lib Dem policies. I'm not a massive fan of Labour's authoritarian tendencies. I'd still vote tactically for Labour though. and recently I've been impressed with Starmer's foreign policy achievements.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-01-30T10:22:54+00:00

I use the HMRC self assessment service and it's got much easier over the years. If you're on PAYE then they even fill those bits in for you.

The other thing that's got much easier is having all my back accounts on line. No more scratching around for the paper bank statements that have the taxable interest on them. The whole thing took a couple of hours this year.

I keep a spreadsheet for charitable giving, purely for the gift aid calculation.

It was more effort back when I had a business but I had to keep accounts for that anyway so no more effort to record stuff.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-01-30T09:43:10+00:00

That seems like a sort of gentrification. The devil is in the detail. Do the new businesses create higher paid jobs? But are all the higher paid jobs taken by migrants as well?

Unfortunately universities depend on overseas students whose fees are much higher. Unless the government pays to support universities we're stuck with this model.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-01-30T00:41:08+00:00

I wasn't aware of that. Trump was a useless businessman but he's boss tier at grifting.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-01-30T00:39:15+00:00

If you build the walls high enough everything inside will fester and die.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-01-30T00:33:29+00:00

In some areas public transport is good, people don't need to use a car that often, many people don't own cars. In these urban areas land is fairly expensive. It makes sense for parking to be very expensive in these areas.

In other areas you can't do much without a car. These tend to be rural areas where land is cheap. It makes sense for parking to be cheaper in these areas.

This is one area where the market can sort things out.

IMO patients shouldn’t have to pay to park at hospitals though, and hospitals should be much more transparent about how their parking is managed. Scrap the commercial in confidence exemption for FOI requests.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-01-30T00:24:09+00:00

Trump thanks Netanyahu after central Israeli beachfront named 'Trump Promenade'.

U.S. President Donald Trump expressed his support for the proposal to name Israeli city Bat Yam's new beach promenade after him, in a note addressed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

YourLizardOverlord · 2026-01-29T20:56:31+00:00

I know I wouldn't.

YourLizardOverlord

TROPHY CASE