Good point, they’re pretty bad because of that. They didn’t even make it big on the list in 2001. Apparently the US itself gets a mention. Up to 2% say it’s its own worst enemy.

In the list of enemies, I completely miss the Gulf States, most prominently the KSA. I deem their export of fundamentalist Islam even more dangerous to ‘western democracies’ than the Russian trolling and ‘botting’.
(Although I have to admit the latter scored a big victory by getting Mr Trump elected.)

It’s there. It’s just getting drowned out by extremist opinions. All media has to be exciting, and merely informative doesn’t get ratings and pay the bills unfortunately. News shows produced in NZ (and some others do the same) are required to be accurate. They are not allowed to report fake news, or unfairly spin news items.

And with so much money in politics, there are too many with a vested interest in retaining power to increase their wealth. Most modern democracies have limits on both money spent and donated (and on time spent campaigning). That way people and parties need a broader base of support to run. In 2012, for example, if Sheldon Adelson (?sp) hadn’t supported Rick Santorum, he likely couldn’t have kept his campaign going for as long as he did. People like Adelson have a lot of say in who gets elected. So much for one person, one vote.

Yummy!

We make chevre, but nothing more complicated than that.

L

The things that you and “Yakaru” bring up are of critical importance — “critical” as in vital; critical as in “involving the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement,” and critical in a couple of other senses of the word as well. It’s the reason I’ve gone back to crack my old logic books and brush up on fallacies, so that when these folks engage in their verbal shenanigans, I’ll hopefully hoist them by their own petard, because I find that calling their fallacious arguments what they are, and being as specific as I can, is the best way to take them down, or at least cut them down to size so one can then have at them better. If I try to counter the substance of what they say without showing them that I know full well the the structural flaws behind their assertions, they just badger and talk over and use those kind of emotive rhetorical tactics to overwhelm and silence.

The little goats must be jumping and boinging around now like crazy.

Those kids are so cute! Thanks for the added information. Do you make cheese?

Your political comments are spot on as well. Social media is as good as it is malevolent. Russians figured this out years ago and have been exploiting the platform ever since. And Republicans think Russia is the least dangerous out of NK, China and Iran…mind boggling. FOX propaganda has seriously damaged the citizenry of this country, and thus has damaged the country itself.

Watching these high school kids speak – they’re amazing. A real step up from the snowflake generation. Maybe this is what the example provided by eight years of Obama does for young, impressionable minds?