BruceVC

Interesting, I wasn't aware of that history of Iran

It would be hard to imagine regime change in Iran in the same way it happened in Venezuela, remove the leader and the new government falls in line and starts reversing all the authoritarian policies and the country starts on a journey of becoming a real Democracy again Iran has never been a real Democracy and its spent the last 45 years creating a mindset that is opposed to the US and its " imperialist influence " Anti-American sentiment is ingrained into the psyche of most of the hardliners in Iran, its all they have ever known And anti-Israeli sentiment is even worse There are lots of Iranians who would love to see a better relationship with the US and the West and the country to just be a normal member of the international community But they not in power I would assume the US and Israeli objective is if you kill the Iranian leadership and keep bombing them then the new government would be more favorable to all the demands and objectives Its difficult to predict what will happen because we haven't seen this before with the Supreme Leader being killed I dont think we will see the political change we are hoping for with the new leadership but you never know ?

What concerns me is the military objectives have changed from ending Iran's nuclear program to a rant about regime change That's Israeli influence for sure And this was 10 hours after Iran had apparently agreed to the nuclear terms in Oman So now its about an impossible demand, how would you ever achieve regime change in Iran without an invasion and a massive ground offensive and then long-term US commitment like Afghanistan or Iraq Iran is not anything like Venezuela where it was easy to accomplish Al JazeeraPeace ‘within reach’ as Iran agrees no nuclear material s...Oman's Foreign Minister says most recent indirect talks between US, Iran 'really advanced, substantially'."Iran agreed during indirect talks with the United States never to stockpile enriched uranium, said Oman’s top diplomat, who described the development as a major breakthrough. Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi also said on Friday that he believed all issues in a deal between Iran and the US could be resolved “amicably and comprehensively” within a few months. "If the ultimate objective is to ensure forever that Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb, I think we have cracked that problem through these negotiations by agreeing [on] a very important breakthrough that has never been achieved any time before,” Al Busaidi said. “The single most important achievement, I believe, is the agreement that Iran will never ever have nuclear material that will create a bomb,” he said. “Now we are talking about zero stockpiling, and that is very, very important because if you cannot stockpile material that is enriched, then there is no way that you can actually create a bomb,” he added. '

Yeah, I know you were joking I know you know Trump exaggerates these types of events Its all part of his hubris, insecurity and constant need for adulation and praise

You mean you still believe everything Trump says on geopolitical events especially when he is notorious around how he sensationalizes and exaggerate things ? Come on, I thought we stopped doing that after his first presidency years ago They damaged the Iranian sites, they didnt destroy them completely. How would anyone even know what that means if even the IAEA didnt have access to inspect them?

Here is Trump's justification for attacking Iran, its only 8 minutes long It's a combination of legitimate reasons like the nuclear program and then he talks about regime change and destroying Iran's navy It's not very convincing unless you planning on a protracted war which is exactly what his supporters were told the US under Trump wouldn't do Regime change in Iran is also impossible to imagine how it could realistically happen https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116147082884192486

Here is an interesting story about the differences in the price of games on Steam depending on where you live Atomfall Complete Edition cost me R730 which is £33 if you convert to British Pound And its on a 12% discount I was chatting to someone on Codex who says for him on Steam its £68 which is R1470, he lives in the UK And thats for today I never thought Steam would have such vast price differences for any game with the difference being where you live ?

That looks excellent, its been a while since I have a watched a good mermaid series

The greatest horror\supernatural series of all time is returning From S4, April 19

I decided to buy Atomfall with all the DLC and Im going to play it next I have heard good things about this game 🤖

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/02/20/mamdani-nyc-budget-affordability-crisis/ Fareed Zakaria has written an article highlighting serious concerns around Mamdani's budget and plans to deliver on his promises to make NY " affordable " This is almost always the case with socialist promises, they end up with a massive tax bill because how do you pay for it? He also raises a trend around financial mismanagement seen in several Dem controlled cities I have included the full article below and I would encourage everyone to read it who is following Mamdani and his plans going forward "Zohran Mamdani ran on a promise to make New York City affordable. This week, he unveiled a budget that is, in a word, unaffordable. New York has been fiscally profligate for so long that the headline number — $127 billion — produces little shock. But for perspective, these are similar to the annual expenditures of a midsize nation (with all the expenses a country requires) — like Greece or Thailand — devoted to governing one city. New York City’s budget has ballooned in recent years. Mike Bloomberg’s last budget, adopted for fiscal 2014, totaled about $70 billion. In little more than a decade, the budget has nearly doubled, growing faster than inflation and faster than the city’s economic growth. And much of it has happened as the city has been losing the one thing that makes big government easier to finance: people. New York City’s population fell sharply amid the pandemic, with a 5.3 percent decline from April 2020 to July 2022. More recent reports show a rebound, but the city remained below its 2020 baseline as of 2024. The arithmetic is brutal: A larger bill is divided among fewer payers. Per person, the imbalance is stark. Using the Lincoln Institute’s fiscally standardized numbers, New York’s general spending in 2023 was more than 30 percent higher per capita than Los Angeles’s — and more than double Houston’s. And what do New Yorkers get for this? Look at New York City schools, the largest district in the country. The city’s education budget has climbed while enrollment has shrunk. It has risen from roughly $34 billion in 2019 to more than $40 billion, with per-student spending projected to reach nearly $35,000 in fiscal 2026 — among the highest in the nation. The outputs — graduation numbers, test scores and reading levels — are at best middling, often comparable to places that spend a fraction of what New York does. Now come the taxes — because every political argument in New York eventually ends up at the same curbside: Who will pay? New York City already sits at the extreme end of the American tax spectrum. For high earners, the combined state and city income tax rate reaches 14.776 percent. Add federal taxes, and the combined marginal rate can exceed 50 percent, reaching roughly 55 percent on certain investment income. New Yorkers pay tax rates comparable to those in European countries that provide, in return, universal health care, free college education and amazing infrastructure. New Yorkers get some 300 miles of sidewalk sheds and construction fences. On business taxation, the city is also off the charts. The Citizens Budget Commission reports that New York City business activity faces the country’s highest combined marginal corporate tax rate — 17.44 percent once state, city and regional layers are stacked. Mamdani wants to hike income and corporate rates even further, or else he says he will raise property taxes by almost 10 percent. Property taxes already made up more than 27 percent of the costs of homeownership in the city as of 2022, above the national average. New York is really the prime example of a problem Democrats seem unwilling to confront. Blue cities are out of control, promising more, spending more, delivering less and pushing off the fiscal problems to some future day. Take Los Angeles — another one-party metropolis wrestling with affordability and disorder. The city’s homelessness budget for fiscal 2025-2026 totals about $950 million. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority reported that in 2023 homelessness was up 9 percent countywide and 10 percent in the city, and a 2024 Associated Press account noted that homelessness has surged 70 percent countywide since 2015 (and 80 percent in the city) amid public frustration “despite billions spent.” An audit reviewed $2.4 billion in city homelessness funding and found that officials could not reliably track where it went or what it achieved. Or take Chicago, with a mayor whose approval rating is deep underwater and where the pension promises are so large that they will surely bankrupt the city at some point. What is the theory of good government here? If the answer is “keep adding programs,” the city will keep producing unaffordability — because unaffordability is what happens when government becomes a machine that grows faster than the society it governs. Mamdani’s basic instinct is right. Focus on affordability, especially housing. But not by providing government subsidies — these only seem to have driven up the cost of rent, as subsidies naturally do. (The city’s rental-assistance spending rose from $263 million in fiscal 2020 to $1.34 billion in the most recent reported fiscal year. That is a fivefold increase in a handful of years — and housing costs only got worse.) Matt Yglesias persuasively argues that the city should make it easy — and routine — to build abundant market-rate housing. That will bring in more people, expand the tax base, fill the schools and increase local GDP. And that will make the budget affordable. Democrats in city halls can make the right choice: stop governing as if the goal is to announce new entitlements, and instead make government work — safer streets, functioning schools, predictable sanitation and, above all, enough housing that the middle class can find places to live. New York does not need more soaring rhetoric. It needs more homes."

Yes, we call it the Government of National Unity There was this initial criticism from the parties not part of it that they cant call it a GNU for some obscure technical political reason but it was more about semantics Anyway that was ignored and we call it that One of the opposition parties even took the state owned broadcaster, SABC , to court to stop them referring to it as the GNU but they lost that case TimesLIVECourt dismisses application by MK Party to stop SABC from...The Johannesburg high court on Friday dismissed with costs an application by the MK Party and its leader Jacob Zuma which sought to prevent the SABC from using the term “government of national unity”"The Johannesburg high court on Friday dismissed with costs an application by the MK Party and its leader Jacob Zuma which sought to prevent the SABC from using the term “government of national unity” or “GNU” when describing the coalition government. Arguments on the application were heard on Monday. Counsel for the MK Party Dali Mpofu argued that the SABC, as a public broadcaster, had a responsibility to provide impartial reporting and that the use of the term was inaccurate. He said the SABC should refer to the current administration as an “ANC-DA coalition”. The SABC opposed the application and said the public broadcaster had not breached its editorial code by using the term."

Coalitions can bring stability and legitimacy to a country because they seen as a fair representation of voting outcomes, especially with a 50% majority required But they can also fail if the terms of the coalition are not clear and if its members dont put the country first and understand they now working with other parties to govern In South Africa's example we seeing real maturity with the GNU and success around several economic metrics and the running of public sector SOE since we created a GNU after our last election The GNU was formed in June 2024 and for at least the first 3-4 months the local media would run a weekly story about irreconcilable problems between the ANC and the DA and how the GNU would never last because of " ideological differences " And this was almost entirely geopolitical differences which as expected get sensationalized and exaggerated around there importance The GNU partners agree on the most significant things which are about our many domestic problems and they all respect the Constitution and they all realize we need a stable government even if it is a coalition Thats why our GNU has maintained and seen real success

I want to have this debate around "does voting matter " because it comes up often in many countries that have free and fair elections including South Africa where we have high levels of voting apathy and low levels of voter turnout compared to previous elections And lets use the US as an example because that's most of the focus on this thread But I just want to clarify that our foundational view is the same and the reason you need to vote in any Democracy Do you think there is a difference between the Dems and the GOP around many policies and also a difference in the presidential candidate around geopolitics? This might seem like an obvious answer and you would assume the response is " yes, of course" But many people believe it doesn't matter who wins US elections, the parties will act in the same way end of the day around policy outcomes and geopolitics but its done surreptitiously I obviously believe there are clear differences around the 2 parties Yes they have some common views but several stark ideological differences and what policies they will implement or try to implement This is the same as almost all Democracies where you find leadership change through free and fair elections

So how would you suggest political leadership gets decided in any country? Or are you only talking about the USA?

Sure but my point is there are people who question the importance of government accountability that only exists in Democracies where courts are independent Its not just in Russia or China where courts would never reverse this type of decision by the president or leadership In South Africa I sometimes hear support for more autocratic countries because there leaders are seen as "strong " but people dont realize what freedoms they lose under those same governments

Yes, he can do tariffs in another form and see how they work But for me thats not the significance of this ruling There are 2 main takeaways from this the majority Conservative SC will not always support his policies. There has always been a concern around this because its a 6-3 Conservative majority. Trump's overall ability to implement sweeping policies effectively has been undermined And I predict this will become worse after the Midterms where the GOP will lose control of either the House and or the Senate But end of day its a victory for US Democracy, and global Democracy, because its an example of the functional structure of the checks and balances that all US presidents must be accountable to Can you ever imagine the courts in Russia or China being able to reject and reverse something as significant as these tariffs that the state decided to implement and vociferously support

Supreme Court strikes down Trump's sweeping global tariffsThe ruling opens the door to potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in tariff refunds.Not a good day for Trump with the SC ruling against the reasons for many of his tariffs A good example of the SC Conservative majority not being controlled or aligned to everything he does

W3 is my 4th favorite RPG of all time I played Cyb2077 recently and it was fun but no where close to W3 for me I am not an active fan of the Cyberpunk genre so that was one reason, fantasy is always my favorite genre So the lore of Cyb2077 was lost on me but also I found the city relatively empty of things to do and then the combat becomes too easy But its an entertaining game and worth playing It also had some interesting mechanics like quick hacks and netrunning but I prefer my Witcher signs and potions 🐉 And the companions and several side quests were well done

I completed Dead Island 2 after about 50 hours I tried to do every side quest and slowdown finally finishing the game because I was having so much fun But its not a long game or maybe its the normal length for this type of game but Im still thinking of my recent LoreRim\Skyrim experience which was 400 hours I need to stop comparing any game to that type of game length Anyway Dead Island 2 is a highly recommended Zombie killing game for the reasons I have already mentioned in previous posts It gets a solid 70/100 on the highly respected " BruceVC game rating system "

Sure but what do you think the EU\UK should do going forward around its defense? Stay in NATO or create something new specific to its common defense or if the US leaves NATO keep NATO going without the US? I appreciate your analysis of the current reality but Im looking for what you think is best for the EU\UK in the future

Im breaking my normal 20 minute long video rule and posting this 30 minute video because its so interesting Its all about Canada's strategic tariffs on the US because of Trumps tariffs and the thinking behind them by Carney, you can see he has a deep understanding of financial markets and what tariffs should be used by Canada @Malcador and @rjshae we were just talking about this Only minor complaint is he repeats certain words and points like scalpel

Yes adequately means does the EU have a military union that could be deployed to deter any Russian invasion or participate in any EU military campaign That obviously exists with NATO but if the US left NATO, which is not going to happen, how effective would NATO be? This is about making the right decision for whats best for the EU\UK What do you think the EU\UK should do? Stay in NATO and commit to 5% or create its own defense union which might be more expensive and complicated? Unfortunately you cant ignore the threat a country like Russia poses especially towards former Soviet states that are part of the EU

I have been playing Dead Island 2 for about 25 hours and its still entertaining as a typical Zombie apocalypse killing game The crafting is excellent and well thought out and so are the weapons you find and use To use weapon mods and other improvements you need to constantly scavenge for resources but your weapons dont level with you so even a good weapon you like you will find it becomes ineffective and degrades quicker as you fight higher level Zombies You do have an option to level up your weapon but thats expensive So this creates a reality where you motivated to constantly explore and find new weapons on your level and then upgrade them with mods And then the game has a good balance between when you use guns\ranged weapons and melee weapons, certain apex Zombies I can only defeat using guns so you have to be strategic in many battles. You also encouraged to use the environment in combat, blowing up oil barrels to kill Zombies is very rewarding Finally the game gives you skills when you find these cards and there are several dozen combat cards so you can customize your slayer by using different cards These types of mechanics make Dead Island 2 a really fun game and well worth playing 🧟‍♂️

And these types of new trade deals are to be expected because it must be very frustrating for historical allies of the US like Canada and the EU to be constantly threatened with tariffs from Trump because of exaggerated economic imbalances like " its unfair to the USA that there exists this trade deficit with country x" or using tariffs because of geopolitical objectives like Greenland So you do what the Chinese did when they learnt last time when Trump was president and you insulate yourself by having other export markets You can also wait out Trumps presidency but thats still a few years off and having these types of deals established makes sense It wont change the reality of the US still being the worlds strongest consumer driven economy and an incredibly advantageous market to get access to but you should have other options Its not anti-Trump, its pro-Canada