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6:00 am, January 15th, 2026 - 15 comments
Categories: open mike -
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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 …
Roddenberry knew.
.
https://xcancel.com/visionergeo/status/2011522593396752515
Some personnel at the United States’ largest military base in the Middle East have been urged to leave, a US official told CNN on Wednesday, as regional nations press the Trump administration to reconsider taking military action against Iran.
The US official described the directive to some personnel to leave al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar as a “precaution,” given current tension in the region.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/14/middleeast/us-personnel-mideast-base-iran-war-fears-intl-latam
British special forces are being lined up to storm Russian shadow fleet vessels, The Times can disclose.
https://archive.li/1Xk3b
The hegemon model survived the rebellion in the senate:
So now the regime in Venezuela can be forced into compliance with the hegemon's will.
50-50 in the senate hardly gives Trump a green light to wage war.
WTF has Fiji done to annoy Trump!?
NZ and Aus at least escape his ire for now. Not that I have any desire to go.
The rationale is that they may be likely to require US state benefits:
However, as always with the Trump regime there may be another reason:
Maybe Fiji having taken some leadership in a strong relationship with China has something to do with it?
That's rhetorical sleight-of-hand, featuring two tricks:
1. Using an average across a large population to obfuscate a higher figure in a subset of the population. If the administration is focusing on specific countries, the relevant statistic is whether immigrants from those countries use more welfare benefits than native-born Americans, not what the average across all immigrants is.
2. Comparing apples with oranges. You can't choose your native-born citizens, but you can choose your immigrants, so of course a government's aim should be very low welfare dependency among immigrants – otherwise, they're a net loss to the country.
Good point. But it's not clear why Fijians would be more likely to go on benefits than people from other Pacific Islands.
Certainly there' little correlation with the US banned immigration list and official unemployment stats.
Samoa, for instance, has a marginally higher unemployment rate than Fiji, and French Polynesia and Spain have much higher unemployment stats. Unemployment rates in other countries is not necessarily a guide as to whether those nationalities would have a similar unemployment rate in the US.
Anyway, these days I don't know why anyone would choose to live in the US.
Given the general malicious incompetence of the Trump administration, I'd assume this list is as arbitrary and had as little thought put into it as their original tariffs list.
where are they going to get their cheap labour from?
Exactly. Govts often tend to ignore illegal immigrants because they are often doing very low paid work that locals tend not to want to do.
my suspicious mind thinks next it will be work gangs for people on welfare. I mean, they must know what this policy will do to the workforce.
They're dark brown and they have fizzy black hair and they are perceived by the orange turd to be too much like the Blacks in America. Can hear him saying "We've got too many Blacks and we don't want any more".
His ignorance is so profound.
The most talked about job in the country has been sacked. What will happen with the 2nd most talked about job come November??
Razor has gone. Player power has won through
What will people power determine later in the year
He walked away after the performance review.
The following article notes the lack of "continuity" since 2023.
That problem might well remain.
The Robertson era also involved a lost of internal changes for a 2 year period (that slowed the building of a secure environment for players).
https://archive.li/RPbGd
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/360931933/nice-guys-finish-last-players-push-robertson-out-door