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6:00 am, March 7th, 2026 - 33 comments
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
David Skilling gives a 50% likelihood that the US gets a Venezuela scenario out of Iran.
Not bad odds. They achieve their goals.
25% Iraq scenario, 25% Ukraine scenario.
A chilling future world for us littlies.
oh
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Michael Burry Stock Tracker ♟
@burrytracker
·
4h
Breaking: BlackRock just froze $1.2 billion in withdrawal requests at its private credit fund. Here's what happened:
• Investors in BlackRock's $26B fund asked to pull out 9.3% of their money
•BlackRock said no — capped withdrawals at 5%
• Blackstone's $82B fund saw record withdrawal requests the same week
• Blackstone had to put in $400M of its own cash to cover the exits
Two of the biggest funds on the planet are limiting how much you can take out.
https://xcancel.com/burrytracker/status/2029947510953836763
Can anyone outline Iran's strategy and successes so far? I see lots of reckons on twitter, hard to know what to take seriously.
Trapping tanks in the gulf of Hormuz was a success.
Iran is targeting data centres around the Gulf states, with some limited and mixed success. Some of the bombs hit nearby residential complexes/car parks, missing the data centre targeted.
thanks, that's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.
From the 2nd link
Trump's latest 'unconditional surrender' demand is a joke, the true status is only known to the participants and right now even they are probably uncertain. The level of propaganda will be cosmic in scale.
On the face of it Iran's response may have raised the stakes to a level where western financial interests are threatened on a scale not anticipated by the USA. Life in the gulf states may never be the same again, and . . . . oil. I am happy to have an EV.
This alone must be putting huge pressure on the USA to find a way out, but I don't think Trump and the evangelical christian right in his regime had any plan in the first place. Bitten off more than they can chew, but the hubris is very deep.
The more worrying question: will adverse outcomes lead to Israel using nuclear weapons?
thanks for that analysis aj. Sobering reading.
one of the twitter reckons was that in addition to strategically braking oil supplies as well as causing an insurance crisis, Iran has the ability to target water desalination plants in neighbouring countries that are completely dependant on that water. I haven't seen reliable discussion on this.
Journalist and author Ian Dunt has a good substack summary of where we are.
Anyone who wants Britain to join the war in Iran needs their head examined
They don't know what they want to achieve, why they're doing it or what the consequences might be. They are lost in the void.
https://iandunt.substack.com/p/this-is-the-most-nihilistic-war-weve-43e?_src_ref=go.bsky.app&r=7aibo&triedRedirect=true
The 'target desalination plants' idea is pretty good propaganda, but there are two problems with it as a serious tactic:
1. People underestimate just how much money the Gulf states have. Kuwait has so much potable water from desalination plants that it doesn't charge for water and people use it for washing their cars or hosing down their driveways. Degrading that down to the point people were going thirsty wouldn't be easy.
2. The Iranian government seems to suffer from the common prejudice that Gulf Arabs are spoilt rich kids who'll run crying to the Americans to call off the war if their lifestyle starts to suffer. Big mistake. Hitting their desalination plants would have them running to the Americans alright, but with offers of financial and military participation in destroying the Iranian government, not appeals to end the war.
Iran has
1.suffered drought for years
2.was already water scarcity challenged
3.the Russians would have already done in Iran by attacking this vulnerability.
https://onewater.blue/article/tracking-irans-water-crisis-51d45712?language=English
Oh right, of course – three problems, ie don't start throwing stones if your own water supply is the equivalent of a glass house.
Except that the opposite is happening due to financial costs imposed by the war in only the first week. From the FT via The Cradle
https://thecradle.co/articles/gulf-monarchies-review-trillions-worth-of-foreign-investments-amid-war-losses-report
is Kuwait's abundant water stored?
It is, but with a population in the millions the storage facilities wouldn't be good for long if the desalination plants were taken out completely. I took this photo of water storage towers back in 2006, the buildings around them give the scale of it. I don't know how many there are around the city in total though.
Jeez Pyscho… I keep trying to forget the glory days… highlights incl the time a sandstorm hit ..the sails were shredded… visibility 10m.. and we started saying "what's Iranian for MAYDAY". And the time I reffed a rugby 'international' Kuwait vs Royal navy.. forgot to take my passport so couldn't get on ship for a well deserved cold one… aue 🙁
Re a cold one, neighbour in our apt block worked in the oil industry (six weeks on/six weeks off at Syrian wells next to the Iraq border, rather him than me) so could get ethanol, which we could then add to the 0% 'beer' sold at the supermarkets. Was like drinking beer-flavoured vodka.
😉 I used to buy the supermarket still grape juice and add teaspoon of yeast… or a mate got cold Heinekens cos his Kuwaiti mate worked for customs!! The Pasifika truck drivers for the US army could bring back Johnny Walker or Bombay Saphire from Iraq.. it'd cost 100 bucks though.
can't find the tweet now, but I think they were talking about Dubai.
IDK about tweets but there seems to be some merit to the idea.
https://theconversation.com/persian-gulf-desalination-plants-could-become-military-targets-in-regional-war-277597
":will adverse outcomes lead to Israel using nuclear weapons?"
Should it come to pass (God forbid) the irony of such a scenario is astounding. The claimed justification for Israel and the US starting the war in the first place was the so-called imminent nuclear threat posed by Iran.
Listening to and reading those who seem to know what they are talking about, Iran not only does NOT have a nuclear weapon but it is considered to be years away from being able to produce one.
Iran has sent the Gulf States carefully managed image as a safe, luxury, tax free, happy sunny paradise up in a puff of aggressive drone activity. The Emirs will not be at all happy.
CAN ANYONE EXPLAIN THIS TO ME?
“Luxon also said that there were many public polls, but he focused only on internal ones that were processed in Britain. He did not expound on what the benefit of that was.”
This was in the NZHerald piece yesterday.
'What I would say to you is…'
'I don't know how to make it clearer….'
A drowning man will grasp at straws.
Luxon is possibly referring to some Tory Think Tank. He has spoken at the righ wing Policy Exchange.
So! Is the PM of NZ admitting that he is getting political coaching from a foreign Think Tank with most opaque funding sources?
What rules are potentially being broken here?
In reply to aj 3.2.1.1
”“The White House has clearly not done enough planning. This is not a new state for the US. They’ve had a confrontational relationship with Iran for 47 years. There’s so much depth of knowledge across the US about Iran, scenario planning has been done for years on what to expect should a war develop. Leaving a weak fragmented Iran and letting Iranians fight it out in a civil war is a really just a very sad and pathetic day-after scenario… What’s really going to be the sad reality is that they will have broken Iran and they will have left in place hardline remnants of an old regime that will be equally brutal, equally repressive but economically still very strangled.””
An interesting read. Unfortunately if Trump puts boots on the ground, as seems likely, no doubt we’ll follow.
Winston Peters was supposed to be the consummate Foreign Secretary. All I see is an old man sucking up to another old, even more, dangerous man.
My billshit detector went off with this piece of sophistry:
"While the attacks on Iran overall are “a clear violation of the UN charter,” the Dena was “a clear military target,” said Marko Milanovic, professor of international law at the University of Reading in Britain."
Professor Milanovuc needs to get another job. Last I heard the Iranians are not "at war" with the US, they are simply being illegally attacked by them
There is no legal basis for the USA murdering Iranians.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360948085/us-attack-iranian-warship-did-not-violate-international-law-experts-say
On the same day this government allows foreigners to buy houses over $5 million, this government keeps the door shut hard and tight to any war refugee out of Iran.
In the 1940s and 1950s we took European refugees by the boatload, and it helped make this country a good country.
The same policy for Ukraine and Iran refugees would do us no harm.
We have had Iranian refugees here since the 1980’s.
Reply didn’t go where intended – to Stephen D @5
Unintended consequences.
Rubio during an interview in the US two nights ago: "Iran is being run by lunatics". The irony would be totally lost on him, but not most of the world.
Qatar energy minister warns war will force Gulf to halt energy exports within weeks, FT says
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/qatar-energy-minister-warns-war-will-force-gulf-stop-energy-exports-within-weeks-2026-03-06/
https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpermalink.php%3Fstory_fbid%3Dpfbid02vrbF7dpUesye8ruKUVUrarMPEjSxjjgKb9XvZpvwUM87sDnLGu9S5Xzfp6tUtmZHl%26id%3D100006321002237&show_text=true&width=500
Wealthy and sorted….POS
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Christchurch Hospital has warned kidney patients that dialysis treatment may be rationed due to a severe lack of staff and physical space.
In a letter sent to patients, seen by 1News, the hospital's kidney department said there was no longer adequate space or staff to provide haemodialysis for everyone who required it.
To manage pressure, patients may be asked to change dialysis days, shifts or locations, including between the Acute Dialysis Unit, Ward 14's "pop up" unit, and the Home Training Centre.
"It may even mean you are asked to change location," department head Dr Penny Hill wrote.
If those measures were not enough, treatment frequency could be reduced from three sessions a week to two.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2026/03/07/christchurch-dialysis-patients-told-treatment-could-be-rationed/
https://bsky.app/profile/kentduston.bsky.social/post/3mgg4buufss2h
Cutting dialysis just to save a couple of dollars is truly toxic behaviour. But let's ask ourselves the question: where did the money that used to be available to keep people alive actually go?
A short thread.