Half-Brick McCurdy

Nice follow up below to the Moscow air defense image, which depicts over a year's production worth of Pantsir systems having been diverted away from direct conflict areas.

Nanjing Automobile Group bought the dregs of MG in 2005 because they wanted the old plant BMW had installed to update there own (BMW having bought Rover in 1994, then sold it to the Phoenix chancers in 2000).

On the one hand, Russian nuclear sabre rattling doesn't influence the Trump Whitehouse the way it did Biden's. On the other, it doesn't need to.

Barclays chairman admits Mervyn King forced decision for Diamond to quit Marcus Agius says Bank of England governor summoned Barclays directors to say Diamond did not have support of FSA

3/3 The lesson here is always ignore the oleaginous Nail Ferguson who was wanging on about how compared to current, over complicated financial regulation, back in the day Montagu Norman raising his eyebrow could move markets, utterly oblivious to that being what happened to the Barclays CEO & COO.

2/3 a Treasury select committee they'd had a Deputy Bank of England (BoE) governor on the phone essentially telling them to rig Libor. Shortly after this both Barclays boys were got tae fuck and, in a pure co-inky-dink, Deputy BoE Governor Paul Tucker 'effed off to the Harvard Kennedy School.

1/3 The fun thing about Libor rigging is there were 2 phases, the "at it" phase, then the 2nd Bank of England stepping in and asking bosses of "at it" folk to rig things to avoid a financial meltdown during the credit crunch phase.

The hallmark of the 2nd phase was then Barclays CEO and COO telling

Cheers (so then becomes available as a % of GDP for international and historic comparisons)

A key function of the previous arrangement was to legitimise the actions of the Pentagon. By replacing the insipid questions and access journalism piffle of legacy media with Right wing loons and goons, the department has deligitimised itself.

Conversely, Americans lumpenly accept healthcare and criminal justice systems that are vicious clown shows, Trump's worst excesses are reserved for non-Trump locales and there's clearly plans for institutionalised cheating watched by a media that's either Trump propaganda or sane-washing drivel.

Is local government military spending on say recruitment bonuses in addition to this?

And presumably as well as/in contrast to those rings of hi-tech stuff, a technical.

Except Bessent has multiple reasons to exaggerate the impact of the sanctions; their supposed significance is the current White-house talking point and because they're already blocking other more substantive US actions (the senate bill sanctions bill has been delayed again).

Neat reminder Ukraine's long range strikes do damage directly and see Russia reallocate a lot of resources away from the "front" line.

Bezos's comments check out: 2 million living good in a Stanford torus, billions left behind in the contaminated dirt.

The obvious companion piece to this article is the proclivity of American "libs"and legacy media to memory-hole Right wing violence ASAP (see also Right wing sex offenders).

The US is the world's largest oil and gas exporter, Trump sanctioning Rosneft and Lukoil is like Coca-Cola sanctioning Pepsi.

Yip, by doing this (sanctioning Rosneft/Lukoil), Trump doesn't need to do that (sanction shadow tankers, secondary sanctions, support the Graham/Blumenthal senate sanctions bill, etc.,)

'eff all is better than nothing, but are domestic US politics a factor here, especially if the sanctions provide the latest excuse to not progress the more substantive Graham/Blumenthal bill?

Alternatively, the old system served more to legitimise than scrutinise whereas drivel like this can be happily ignored.

Putin supervises nuclear readiness drills for Russian nuclear forces | CNN Russia’s strategic nuclear forces carried out a readiness test supervised by the country’s President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, the Kremlin said.

And sanctions the same day Russia did some old timey sabre rattling of the sort that shaped the volume, timing, type and usage of Biden aid for Ukraine and prompt serious discussions thereof. Instead, the US folk quoted in this story appear utterly oblivious to anything other than Trump's meetings.

I was wrong, the US is finally doing something. Not sure how material/how it'll affect Russian exports (and customers including the EU), but difficult to see how SLB (FKA Schlumberger) maintains it's Russian operations albeit these will presumably just be appropriated by Russia

2/2 master manipulator, the latest phone call and Budapest meeting as was, mostly served to bolster the existing US position on Ukraine, as excuses to continue doing nothing, while maintaining the impression, via a complicit media, of US support.

Hat tip to Michael Weiss for pointing out the hatred

1/2 I reckon hot takes about Putin pulling Trump's strings lose sight of Trump, a vindictive PoS, who happily withholds emergency funding from Americans, hands $40bn lifelines to presidents he likes and 50% tariffs to those he doesn't, hating President Zelenskyy.

And for all Putin is the supposed

Except Ukraine was never going to get Tomahawk missiles. instead Putin handed Trump an excuse to keep doing nothing.

You can approach the peace talks as per the attached. Alternatively, they've already handed the US the latest excuse to not move forward with sanctions and - with Bulgaria now offering Putin an air corridor - dented European unity and international law.

Its not a real heist if there's no glamourous insurance investigators.

After the climb down comes Americans talking about sanctions again. OFC Lindsay Graham is namechecked and ofc it's yet more wait and see. Here's Senate Majority Leader John Thune the day of the Putin phone call vs yesterday afternoon. Meanwhile its 295 days since the US last approved an aid package

Trump's position before/in office is perfectly clear and consistent, no new aid for Ukraine, no new sanctions on Russia and pressure only applied to Ukraine. Except folk want new content, which the reality TV star/inventor of infrastructure week exploits by creating distracting melodrama.

Was a brilliant, funny, fun (and fancy) comic to read. I hope you get to write some more.