nigel99

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnewsvideo/s/ePT1VSGi5A I love the fact the first president to “take the guns” is Trump

https://youtu.be/Jk0nUUqG_Ag?si=F7rBwu9Y6XRAG5vu Jonathan Pie talking about Trump. “How do know Zelenski isn’t a dictator? Because Trump doesn’t have his nose firmly up his arse, while giving him a reach around”

A couple of years ago my aunt posted on FB asking if anyone had any good BBC video recommendations. My ex being Aussie was horrified and asked my aunt if she had meant to post that publicly:) Very funny seeing the acronym have 2 very different meanings

We had to have Brexit. If we hadn’t then due to Eu laws we would have had to have straight bananas.

That’s really sad. It seems Tesla fatality rates are roughly double the industry average, and that doesn’t even account for the Cybertruck that is apparently more unsafe than the Pinto. https://www.cbtnews.com/iseecars-study-reveals-tesla-tops-fatal-accident-rate/

Glad to see you back

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-recalls-380000-vehicles-us-over-power-steering-issue-2025-02-21/ 380 000 Tesla’s recalled because the steering’s not right :)

https://youtu.be/1kYIojG707w?si=1k_HepSVZ4SmE0XZ A bit of a humorous take on the two party system

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-declines-let-trump-immediately-fire-agency-head-2025-02-21/ Here’s a sliver of hope for you and your beliefs. It’s not over yet, but at least the SC didn’t roll over immediately.

Unfortunately that is a huge problem. The people spreading disinformation rely on people who only think and process in sound bites and the world is a complex and messy place. Anyone can compress the solution to a problem into a soundbite

This is an interesting article about how the military may be reluctant to disobey illegal orders https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/21/politics/trump-executive-order-military-justice/index.html Maybe “Checks and Balances” is the new “Thoughts and Prayers”

Thanks for your perspective. I admire your optimism and the fact it isn’t based on blind ignorance. I completely agree about the emotions trumping logic. Unfortunately there are people who are able to harness that and use it to manipulate people into blindly following down a dark path (think cults and the like). I believe one of the reasons the dems struggle is that they appeal to logic and not emotions.

Interesting about the French guy.

One of the reasons for my post was to get views of people like you. I’m not holding you to any predictions, or assuming you’re a Trump supporter (and even if you are I don’t mind). How do you see things playing out?

I’d be willing to bet that there will be an attempt to avoid it.

I’m interested in your views on this? I don’t remember your thoughts on Musk doing it, and know you’re cautious about getting caught up in mass hysteria regarding the broader topic of a white power agenda. I know stills can be misleading so here’s a snippet to it in context. It’s hesitant and not as bold as Musk. More like a naughty boy trying to thumb his nose at a parent. https://imgur.com/a/former-white-house-chief-strategist-steve-bannon-sig-heils-cpac-today-FIuEqCr

https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-5353 Canadian’s you can do your part to try and get Elon’s citizenship revoked.

It’s been 30 days since the inauguration and things have moved faster than I think anyone could imagine. I think most people are pretty shocked at what’s happening and globally countries are starting to distance themselves from the US. There is a growing movement to boycott US products and travel. Trump is barely in the news cycle and Musk is dominating it, to the extreme that Musk’s 4 year old ‘shushed’ him in the oval office. Trump’s behaviour is something strait out of a third world dictatorship, with the official Whitehouse putting out pictures of him as king and him doing laps of Daytona and flypasts. There are open calls for him to serve a third term. From the outside I don’t see a political solution. The judiciary and other government institutions appear powerless to intervene and mid term elections are a lifetime away in terms of the changes and damages that can be done. The Democrats seem completely out of their depth and the republicans around Trump (Vance and Johnson) are likely to exploit rather than curtail Trump’s abuse of power when they take the reigns. As an Australian citizen, I’d like us to rapidly pull away from the US and any close military and intelligence ties with the USA. Remove any American bases and make it clear to China that we are sovereign and neutral. We should revisit buying military equipment from Europe and continue to build our trade relationships with Asia. But I’m curious what you see as the future, and if you disagree with my assessment of the direction of the US why I’m wrong and the you see it going in.

It could well be that he is. But aside from the core focus being on weed, I do like the high level policies they have, like the one below. Public Interest and Accountability All politicians should be legally bound to act in the public interest. Caps on electoral spending, real-time reporting of political donations, and the establishment of strict rules governing MPs' expenses have been enacted. The focus is now on ensuring that politicians are held accountable for justifying accepting positions with businesses that profit from those very same politicians while in power.

A slight side show from the US drama, this is what’s going on at home. Opposition leader (nicknamed Temu Trump), is falsely saying Labour are giving people citizenship to help sway the election. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/dutton-wrongly-says-labor-is-fast-tracking-citizenship-for-gazans-to-win-votes-20250220-p5ldv2.html A local politician has legally changed his name to Aussie Trump. (Also has 35 charges of breaching a restraining order) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-07/outcast-wa-politician-ben-dawkins-changes-name-to-aussie-trump-/104905758 Voters for the non major two parties are now over 30% and support for the main parties is steadily slipping https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/the-steady-decline-of-voters-choosing-the-major-parties-is-reshaping-australia-politics/ The small party that I was impressed by has the crappy name of “Legalise Marijuana” and is run by a medical doctor. I’ve met him a few times and planned to support them. Until we had a private conversation on Bluesky and when I asked policy details and he blocked me :)

Well Trump just called himself King. I guess no dictator ever calls themselves dictator.

I’m coming to the end of my psych degree, and change is interesting. I think it’s possible if you change the leadership and plan for the resulting churn. I’ve seen it work in smaller organisations, I was in senior management in a company of 500 people. I’d imagine the inertia in a larger organisation makes it next to impossible.

Years ago there was an article in an engineering magazine that mentioned how even the threat of death doesn’t make people change. The examples given were medical advice to stop smoking or to change diet.

Trump and Musk are going about this in a highly unethical and probably illegal way. Part of the problem with bloat is that no politician wants the cuts in their area. If the US is anything like UK/Aus public servants typically get a job for life and as a result you can get very incompetent and or lazy people staying. Early 2000’s working at a UK research lab we had an old engineer who didn’t know how use computers. He literally sat and read the newspaper each day. There was no pretence that he was working, just ticking along to retirement. Organisational change is tough and requires strong leadership. My current employer has 15000 people and are a train wreck as far as organisational change goes.

I understand that it’s different. We have got a 2 major parties that power swaps between. Polling is showing for the first time that over a third of voters are planning to vote for minor parties. If the 3rd of voters who had stayed home followed Biguns lead it “might” make a difference.