- “U.K. health agency to cut 800 jobs and halt routine Covid testing” – The public health body set up by Boris Johnson to combat the pandemic is in turmoil, with plans looming to cut jobs by up to 40% and suspend routine Covid testing in hospitals and care homes to save money, reports the Guardian.
- “Daily Covid admissions hit two-month low, deaths plunge 40% in a week and just 17,500 Brits test positive” – Latest Government dashboard data show there were 1,186 admissions for the virus across the U.K. on April 23rd, the Mail reports.
- “WHO chief warns that the world is ‘increasingly blind’ to Covid” – WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is warning that it is too early to pull back on some Covid testing and surveillance as it would leave the world blind, the Mail reports.
- “Bill Gates: how to prevent the next pandemic” – Writing in the Times with an excerpt from his new book, the billionaire proposes that next time we should do lockdowns “right away” and find treatments faster.
- “Lockdown drove 60,000 more secondary school children into clinical depression” – Symptoms such as low mood, loss of pleasure and poor concentration increased by 6% after Covid struck, a study finds, according to the Telegraph.
- “Passport Office boss ‘working from home’ as backlog of 700,000 threatens holiday chaos” – Abi Tierney is under pressure to return to the London base permanently as delayed applications could scupper Britons’ summer holidays, the Telegraph reports.
- “New Zealand’s hotel quarantine ‘lottery’ infringed on citizens’ right to return home, High Court rules” – Report from SBS News that Grounded Kiwis, a lobby group founded to protest New Zealand’s tough COVID-19 border restrictions, has won a court case against the Government.
- “The dark side of the ‘protect the NHS’ slogan” – The High Court’s ruling that the Government broke the law on the discharge of patients to care homes in the early days of the pandemic further undermines the claim by the then Health Secretary Matt Hancock that ministers had thrown a ‘protective ring’ around the sector, writes Isabel Hardman in the Spectator.
- “We must learn the lessons of Covid so we are equipped to cope with future pandemics” – Matt Hancock responds in the Telegraph to the High Court ruling that he acted unlawfully in approving the discharge of untested patients into care homes, arguing that the advice he received at the time was that asymptomatic transmission was not a risk.
- “Evidence from the CDC and IDSA that N95 masks work” – Many people think that N95 masks work; Steve Kirsch summarises for them the evidence that supports their position (spoiler: there isn’t any).
- “We’ve asked that the Bangladesh mask study either be corrected or withdrawn” – If there was any protection at all, it was too small to measure in the study that was done, writes Steve Kirsch. “The authors need to do the right thing and correct or retract the study ASAP.”
- “Coal power set for stay of execution as ministers scramble to keep lights on” – Drax is asked to extend its coal operations beyond September, the Telegraph reports.
- “Face masks for cows could help save the planet one burp at a time” – Methane-catching devices, an invention backed by the Prince of Wales, could be fitted to herds to reduce carbon hoofprint of British beef, reports the Telegraph.
- “A death sentence for freedom online” – The Online Safety Bill won’t make us the “safest country to be online” – just the most boring, says Andrew Tettenborn in the Critic.
- “Prisoners aren’t ‘residents’ in ‘rooms’, says Dominic Raab as he bars woke terms in jails” – The Justice Secretary urges governors not to use “wishy-washy” language for fear of undermining public confidence in the penal system, reports the Telegraph.
- “European gas prices surge 24% after Putin ‘blackmails’ Poland and Bulgaria by cutting off their supplies as Moscow says ‘unfriendly’ nations only have themselves to blame” – Poland and Bulgaria are the first countries to have their gas cut off by Europe’s main supplier since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, the Mail reports.
- “Gas embargoes will hurt Europe (much) more than Russia” – The suspension of gas exports to Poland and Bulgaria is a worrying sign, writes Philip Pilkington in UnHerd.
- “Four European Gas Buyers Made Rouble Payments to Russia” – Four European gas buyers have already paid for supplies in roubles as President Vladimir Putin demanded, according to a person close to Russian gas giant Gazprom PJSC, Bloomberg Quint reports.
- “Putin’s main assault is still to come” – Lieutenant-General Jonathon Riley in TCW Defending Freedom on what Putin has in store next and his prospects of success.
- “‘Victory’ for Ukraine means denying Russia any territorial gains from war, says Western intelligence” – Officials say no changes to Ukrainian borders without Government agreement would equate to Vladimir Putin being “seen to fail”, according to the Telegraph.
- “Putin suggests he will use nukes against anyone who ‘interferes’ in Ukraine, saying: ‘We have tools no-one else can boast of. We don’t want to brag about them, we will use them’” – Vladimir Putin has vowed that Russia will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons against any country that tries to interfere in the war in Ukraine or threaten Russia itself, the Mail reports.
- “What makes Boris Johnson so sure Vladimir Putin is bluffing over his nuclear threats to U.K.? I fear they’re real” – If NATO insists on bringing about the defeat of Russia on the most humiliating terms, it risks making a second error that could be calamitous for the West – in threatening nuclear retaliation, Putin and Lavrov almost certainly mean what they say, writes Stephen Glover in the Mail.
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I think there’s so little chance now of the neocon fantasy scenario of a Russian collapse that this is not something to waste time worrying about. If there’s going to be a nuclear exchange it’s likely going to be through a step by step escalation of some sort, beginning with NATO leaders getting desperate to find some way of saving their own face, and pushing their interference too far.
Meanwhile, for those who don’t understand how the real world works, here’s a reminder of what drives US politics and foreign policy:
Ukrainian Lobbyists Mounted Unprecedented Campaign On U.S. Lawmakers in 2021
“Firms working for Ukrainian interests have inundated congressional offices, think tanks, and journalists with more than 10,000 messages and meetings in 2021, according to an analysis of Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, filings for a forthcoming report from the Quincy Institute. To put this extraordinary campaign into perspective, the Saudi lobby — known for being one of the largest foreign lobbies in D.C. — reported 2,834 contacts, barely a quarter of what Ukraine’s agents have done.“
Yes, but the lobby money likely comes from the US in the first place!
Doubtless plenty of flows of taxpayer money to be suckled on by all concerned, but the likely biggest sources are Ukrainian oligarchs, the likes of Victor Pinchuk, Rinat Akhmetov and Ihor Kolomoyskyi.
These men are billionaires, easily able to stump up a few tens of millions of dollars to spend on buying US foreign policy, especially when they are pushing in the same direction as the US neocons and military industrial types.
There’s no big country, however poor the population as a whole, that doesn’t have at least a few fantastically rich parasites able to buy influence in Washington.
How does Nigeria influence Ashington then?
Ashington is a small town in Northumberland – quite cheap for the Nigerians to influence.
Sorry, a private joke.
Come to think of it, Washington is a small town in County Durham…
Nigeria does have some billionaires.
But if it were as simple as that Ukraine-based billionaires could buy US foreign policy, then Russia-based billionaires could buy it back in the other direction…
The most dangerous characteristics of the neocons are their ignorance and their wilfulness. They are grotesque.
Nobody with any knowledge of history could underestimate the Russian power of resistance. Nobody who is not the victim of blind prejudice could fail to see that Russia is a much stronger country in 2022 than it was in 1992.
Or indeed 1922…
The main difference is that the Cold War was about capitalism and democracy versus totalitarian communism- I was a staunch supporter of the pre 1990 NATO, the 1982 nuclear rearmement treaty etc..
It is indeed striking that NATO, the neocons et.al. seem to have totally forgotten this basic.
Or, more likely, they haven’t but needed a scheme and an excuse to continue their warmongering and MIC expenditures (the usual past main warmongerer, the OGMC is also quite happy about this, on top of it very profitable, reprieve from the ESG assault), not least as they simply cannot accept the emergence of a multipolar world, stronger economic and strategic competitors and the West’s relative decline in such a new world order.
The real stupidity of the strategists is their apparent inability to foresee the inevitable main consequence of their warmongering, namely the closer Russia/China&co tieups and the suicidal effects of their sanctions, although the Americans might actually quite like them in the case of Europe.
Their evilness post 1990 and in particular today is beyond question.
I’m sure you’ve listened to Colonel Douglas Macgregor on these subjects. When I first heard him speak, I thought, “That’s what we’ve lost.”
It’s the voice of integrity and clear-sighted reason, argued from a considered political position.
He understands that others may think differently, but he does not blow according to the wind. He looks at the world as it is, not as anyone might wish it to be.
For those who haven’t heard him before, here’s a sample:
Former top Pentagon advisor Col. Doug Macgregor on Russia-Ukraine war – YouTube
I agree. I have been consistently impressed with Macgregor, on a whole host of topics, which I’m sure you know what I mean
Agreed history suggests that it is almost impossible to invade Russia. However, no country is trying to do that. You may have noticed that, with the exception of one or two minor incursions, the fighting is taking place in Ukraine not Russia.
History shows that Russia’s attempts at invading other countries are a mixed record. Think of the Russo-Japanese war. Perhaps the closest analogy is the Crimean war – where Russia attacked the Ottoman empire on the pretext of protecting the Russian Orthodox Christian population (although they had already worked out a deal with the Ottoman government and didn’t particularly want protecting). France and Britain allied with the Ottoman empire and eventually Russia had to sue for peace.
Of course no one is trying to invade Russia, the intention of NATO is to destroy it as a significant power. That’s been the idiotic policy of the USA and NATO since 1991.
I think you overestimate the consistency of US and NATO policy. US policy changes with whatever party is in power and NATO really wasn’t sure what its mission was until Putin gave it a role this year.
I think you need to read a bit more widely. As for NATO, it ceased to have a justification for its existence in 1991.
I do read quite a lot from several different sources. I think you mean I should read more things that support your point of view – which I am happy to do if you are to suggest something (short!). On the other hand I may respond sceptically to what you suggest which I know Mark, for one, doesn’t approve of.
As for NATO, it ceased to have a justification for its existence in 1991.
I agree – until Feb 24th when suddenly it became relevant and looks like it is going to get two more members as a result.
You’re reasoning in circles. You agree that NATO ceased to be relevant (I said it ceased to have justification for its existence) in 1991, but as you know it continued to exist and to increase its membership and to look favourably on the Ukraine joining its ranks, thereby, like Albert and the Lion, provoking a reaction from Russia, at which point you claim it has become relevant again.
So what exactly is NATO going to do? Put boots on the ground and F15s in the air? Biden says the US will do neither. Germany has some obsolete tanks it could send. What’s Johnson going to deliver, some surplus L85s? Russia isn’t losing and NATO isn’t capable of doing anything about it other than prolonging the misery.
OK let’s be more precise. From 1991 until Feb 24th this year there did not seem to be a strong need for NATO as no country was threatening its members (in that sense it was irrelevant to current affairs). Nevertheless, it provided a “just-in-case” security blanket and many countries decided to join, particularly those that had had a hard time under Soviet rule. On the 24th Feb this changed. What is circular about that?
EUNATO/WEF/globocap wants Emperor Puta gone – as Russia is loaded with massive REE mineral assets and fossil fuels all required for the build back better aligned jewel-in-the-crown goal in the elites global oil-n-gas crown.
Vlad the mafia boss lad has to go… as in a more new world order Govt. aligned head of USSR state is required for the win they are currently betting on, that plus the massive profits that the ongoing skirmish brings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDqBHjDHkvw
They create a niche geopol problem… which then begets the mass-formation psychosis compliance reaction… which then delivers the overlords their desired and highly beneficial outcome.
Meanwhile ruskie untermensch conscripts and ditto useless eater ukies are dying in droves.
Who benefits from this?
And why was it key Macron got returned to office?
Absolutely.
I find the mental leaps in such comments interesting. “Power of resistance” doesn’t only refer to resistance to armed invasion, as I think most people here appreciate.
Agreed. My point is that while history shows that Russia’s power of resistance to invasion is very great (largely based on its size and climate) it does not demonstrate any other special power of resistance.
Agreed. The talk of imminent Russian collapse is ignorant rubbish, believed only by those who have little understanding of Russian and Soviet history, Russian culture, or military considerations of morale. [*] The western front is not Afghanistan.
But there are those who either know what they say about weak pathetic Russia being about to collapse is untrue or else they don’t care whether it’s true or not. They want world war 3.
Note
*) Zelensky is the darling of the pro-USA media – and I’m sure Zionists enjoyed the “shared joke” of him wearing a cross on his hoodie and speaking on behalf of the Ukraine when he addressed the Israeli Knesset – but I somewhat doubt he’s as popular in the Ukraine nowadays as he was when he was a “Jim Hacker” character on the telly.
Yes, let’s have a referendum on whether we should provoke Russia into a possible nuclear exchange. It seems NATO will kill us all before considering doing something sensible (and after all, why wouldn’t they? I dare say those pushing this will will make sure they are well out of the way if this gets out of hand).
Three things I ask of a government – to keep us safe; to keep us fed; to keep us warm and sheltered.
These crooks aren’t doing any of it. Could be that they’ll find that millions of us will “waste” our vote, just like in 2015. Murdering villains. This isn’t even funny any more.
Even The Sun is reporting on the threat/warning from Moscow about nukes.
Why aren’t people freaked out?
My mam told me how she was worried back in 1962 during the Cuban Missile crisis.. Now everyone’s asleep.
There was a story about schools being given the day off so that children could at least enjoy their last day before mutual assured destruction happened. I wonder if we are actually any safer now?
So long as they wear masks on their last day, I’m sure we’ll all be fine. If it saves… oh, never mind…
I didn’t get a day off, but it was a boarding school. Nor do I recall much interest among my fellows, but that was likely because we had no access to radio, TV or newspapers. Blissful ignorance of possible imminent immolation was the order of the day.
“Why aren’t people freaked out?”
Seriously, what do you want people to do to demonstrate this, run about screaming?
Good point. Is there evidence of deep concern, in any form?
Partly related: at a band rehearsal this week someone mentioned to me that “on the Sunny Side of the Street” was written as an antidote to the Great depression. “Very suitable for now,” I replied.
“Don’t be so gloomy” was the general response. Preparation and prevention don’t seem to be in anyone’s mindsets nowadays.
Is this the storyline now, I wonder:
“We had Covid which was truly terrible; but we defeated it thanks to a combination of lockdowns, masks and the blessed vaccines.”
“The Russians are pretty stupid people led by a mad dictator, so we’ll be okay in the end as long as we stand firm against them.”
Just believe and don’t make annoying comments or ask annoying questions.
“Even The Sun is reporting on the threat/warning from Moscow about nukes.”
If it’s in your Soaraway Sun then it must be real news!
“The vaccines are going to kill everyone!” – “Look – nuclear weapons!”
Why would Russia/Putin bother with nukes when everyone who has been jabbed are going to snuff it from ‘ADE’.
We don’t hear much about ‘ADE’ nowadays, do we?
I think that’s because, when it didn’t happen, that embarrassing “conspiracy theory” has been swept conveniently under the carpet.
One has to decide for oneself where the nuttier claims start.
Still no news on where 35,000 Canadian trucks vanished to. Was it really 35,000? What is really curious is that no-one wants to discuss that anymore. Did they all just drive home? And then what? Agree to get jabbed so they could continue working? Who knows? No-one on here, it would seem.
In what way is the suggestion that ADE might result from being injected with an experimental ‘vaccine’, a conspiracy theory (a belief that some covert but influential organization is responsible for an unexplained event)?
Why aren’t people freaked out?
Perhaps because of the outcome of the Cuban Missile crisis; perhaps because a good many have never heard of it, or of any other of the serious scares.
I don’t think we can assume that people have necessarily heard of the Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombs either – let alone of their effects on a civilian population.
I think they could be preparing the ground for yet another false flag. The only nuke (tactical) will come from NATO but be blamed on Russia. I should think the Russians are aware of this.
Back in 1962, we didn’t have masks to protect us against nuclear fall-out. Now, we do. And there’s probably a PCR test kit to tell you whether your radiation sickness will kill you or merely cripple you. Ain’t ‘Science’ wonderful?
And the hand sanitizers might help? They’re probably working on a radiation sickness “vaccine” even as we speak!
Don’t give them ideas!
Shortly after I posted that, the thought did occur. Would they actually try that?
I think they have the kind of greed that drives people mad, and that somewhere someone is working on all sorts of craziness.
If anything goes wrong, they have media interests which will ensure that it remains a “fringe” issue.
Don’t worry. Just as the unpleasant climax for NATO is approaching, we’ll be hit by some new global disease/shortage situation and we’ll forget all about Vladimir.
A shortage of deuterium and tritium perhaps?
Billy’s new brew.
Regarding the debate over the use of nukes. Putin will not go nuclear. He will use multiple standoff cruise and hypersonic missiles with conventional warheads to take out electricity generating capacity across Europe. The UK has 12 main power stations. It will not take much effort to take them out. Without electricity, we will quickly be in the stone age. No petrol/diesel pumping available, no radar at airports so no flying or detection of incoming, no refrigeration so much food rots, hospitals shut down despite generators as fuel runs out, no gas moving around the country (no pumping), no water moving around the country (no pumping), no sewage treatment, no ports operate as no GPS system, no internet, no banking so no money, no TV, no radio bar something very basic. The list goes on. Switch off the electricity and watch a modern western economy die. Of course, there are some larger countries with more dispersed power generating capacity that would make this more difficult to achieve, but maybe that makes the UK a more tempting place to make an example of?
You sound like a bundle of joy
Makes you wonder why he hasn’t already done that to Ukraine?
You don’t destroy the infrastructure of a country you want to occupy.
Like he has preserved Mariupol?
You can rebuild a few power stations much more quickly and easily than entire cities.
Presumably, because he has real military advisors who have – out of necessity – managed to emancipate themselves from the Douhet fantasy universe where BIG bombers throwing BIG bombs (onto cities filled with cilivians) are an innovative, new way (as seen from the 1920s) of surefire winning any war.
But he has thrown some very big bombs into some Ukrainian cities. What he hasn’t done is take out the power stations in precision strikes as suggested by Mac57.
On the plus side: XR will stop sitting n the roads…
If FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act in the USA, were taken seriously, there’d probably be less than 10 congresspeople or senators who wouldn’t be required to register.
The best way to check who they are is to look at Congress resolutions declaring that Israel has a “right to defend itself” when that regime is conducting a massacre in Gaza. Everyone who doesn’t vote against would be asked to register under the Act, if it were a serious document.
What makes Boris Johnson so sure Vladimir Putin is bluffing over his nuclear threats to U.K.? I fear they’re real” – If NATO insists on bringing about the defeat of Russia on the most humiliating terms, it risks making a second error that could be calamitous for the West – in threatening nuclear retaliation, Putin and Lavrov almost certainly mean what they say, writes Stephen Glover in the Mail.
My suggestion would be The Fact that he is. A threat – and no threats have been made, BTW, just some unspecific talking about risks – is a definition of bluff. It’s supposed to make people give in despite they haven’t been forced to. Taking other parts of this article into account, Glover certainly operates as Russian stooge here, alluding to things people might have heard of but misrepresenting them: Britain did not capitulate during the Suez crisis, that would mean officially stop armed resistance after a militart defeat and accept whatever peace terms the winner dictates. It withdrew its so-far successful troops from a foreign country. And this didn’t happen due to airy Russian rocket threats but because the USA threatened to cancel the wartime credits to the UK. Withdrawing was a decision of the Aden government. Churchill is on record (Wikipedia) for stating that he wouldn’t have ordered that before the military objectives of the campaign had been reached because of this.
On a more pragmatic note, there’s nothing anybody can do stop Putin from starting a global, thermonuclear war if he wants that (minus the not entirely uninteresting technical questions how many of this never-before tried-in-earnest rockets will actually start, actually reach the destinations they’re supposed to reach and then actually explode). Hence, there’s absolutely no reason to care for that.
Delays issuing passports?
Net Zero working to plan then.
“But I got fully jabbed!”
TOUGH.
“Putin blackmails . . ” This is like saying the supermarket is blackmailing me when it refuses to let me have food I haven’t paid for. Euros can’t be cashed out out by Russia so it demands payment in rubles. Poland says no, so the gas supply gets cut.
“Poland run by drongos” would be a better headline.
It’s more basic than that Londo.
The American warmongers are shipping their billion dollar worth of heavy arms through Poland to Ukraine.
Therefore the Russians are not only depriving Poland of gas but are also targeting the rail lines in Ukraine.
It amazes me the level of ignorance the warmongers have of the Russians
They seem to think they are dealing with juveniles, when it’s a grown up country.
Lots of activity through Rzeszow in SE Poland. The US needs to get out of Europe before they trash our lives any further.
According to Naryshkin, head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (speaking today, I believe), Washington and Warsaw are working on plans to give Poland control over their “historical possessions” in the Ukraine.
Poles are going to get shafted, probably by both sides.
I think it’s an unfortunate and possibly inevitable corollary of speaking of others with contempt. In the end, you might believe that they really are inferior beings: incapable of calm, considered planning and thought.
Something about former US Marines being willing to tell it like it is. This summary describes the kind of “evidence” used to reach the conclusions that underlie mainstream media fantasy pieces like the one from Edward Luttwak linked in yesterday’s News Roundup:
Russian Ops in Ukraine Update – Ammo shortages and other Shortcomings Ukraine Faces
No wonder they seem so delusional.
And at the end, the hard truth for the Ukraine:
“Fighting the Russians to the last Ukrainian, and then giving someone else the tab. They don’t want to pick up the tab and rebuild Ukraine. That’s what’s happening, that’s what’s going to happen. This is what the US and the EU does everywhere. Look at Libya, still a smouldering failed state. All of these promises that the US and the EU made the opposition leaders in Libya in 2011, and all of those promises broken, and the fate of Libya today will be the fate of Ukraine tomorrow. And if the administration in Taiwan is not smarter, it’ll be them further down the road.“
Something about former US Marines being willing to tell it like it is.
The best of them are exceptionally clear-headed realists. War isn’t a game for them.
I wonder if tree has gone to bed? He worked his little socks off on the Fauci article!
What a way to make a living or a life: defending Anthony Fauci.
The crook Fauci who should be in prison by now?
Any more adulation on that score and tree would be washing Fauci’s car every Sunday.
No, that’s not a thinly veiled sexual allusion. But now that I’ve planted the idea in your head, have a nice day.
I quickly extracted it – but cleverly put!
Enjoy tomorrow’s liberty day in the West.
Relatively speaking …
“The West’s idea of pumping the Ukraine full of ammo is, frankly, western psychotherapy, as are sanctions. They are designed to suppress the psychologically unbearable double reality that a) Russia is winning and has been winning from Day 1 and b) that the West, as a society, has committed full-spectrum suicide.”
https://thesaker.is/short-message-from-the-saker-4/
“Besides turning the economic screw on Europe, Russia is sending a clear message with bombs and missiles–the Russians blew up key railroad junctions west of Kiev, effectively cutting the ability of moving any tanks or heavy equipment to the east.”
https://sonar21.com/russia-ratchets-up-the-pressure/
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/04/a-recap-of-the-war-in-ukraine-by-gonzalo-lira.html#more
” There was still a glimmer that the war might end in a negotiated settlement but that ended in early April. After the Istanbul talks of 3/30, the Ukraine side gingerly agreed to some compromises but within a week publicly disavowed those concessions.
That’s when the Russians realized the Zelensky regime was agreement-incapable: Their Washington masters, Victoria Nuland and Anthony Blinken in particular, wouldn’t allow a peace. They want this war to sap Russia dry. It is a classic proxy war and Ukraine will pay the price.
Something else the Russians realized: Sanctions. They hurt but Russia bounced back with remarkable speed. They didn’t really hurt that bad. But the theft of Russia’s $300 billion in foreign reserves by the West DID hurt – badly. The Russians realized they were in a total war with the West and since their foreign reserves were lost forever (likely to be pilfered by corrupt Western politicos), the Russians now have nothing left to lose. By stealing their reserves, the West lost all power over Russia.
This has sealed Ukraine’s fate: The Russians now have no incentive to give up what they have conquered. It has cost them too much in terms of men and treasure. And they know that they can’t negotiate a ceasefire. The Zelensky regime will simply break it later.
Which means:
The Russians intend to conquer and permanently annex all the south and east of Ukraine. This is why their strategy on the battlefield has dramatically shifted: Now they are carrying out a slow, methodical grinding down and destruction of the AFU.
The war in the first 30 days was speed, feints, nominally capturing vast swathes of Ukraine territory, with the aim of pressuring the Zelensky regime into a negotiated settlement. But the West’s total financial and political break with Russia means they have nothing to lose. And they have a lot to gain: The Donbas is mineral rich, the really productive farmlands of Ukraine are in the east and south, Kharkov is a major industrial city, the Sea of Azov has untold natural gas reserves.
And besides – the people love them. Why would the Russians now give up this hard-won prize?
And they *have* won – make no mistake. Ask any military man who is not a system pig, he’ll tell you: There is no way for the AFU to retake their country. They have no armor, no air defense, no fuel, no comms – it’s over.
The great tragedy is that so many THOUSANDS of young men will die, and die NEEDLESSLY!!, in order to postpone the inevitable. These brave boys will have fought so valiantly – and died so young, so cruelly -because of the evil of the Zelensky regime.
That’s the hard truth.
And in the end, this will be the map that will remain—a bitter image of Ukraine’s future. Russia will pour billions into their newly acquired territory. It will prosper and flourish. But the rump-state of Ukraine will be left poor, destroyed, forgotten.
A tragedy.”
And how many hundreds of thousands (or indeed millions) of children will die because of the lockdowns? Loads of extra unborn will die for a start. I tell you, there’s evil all over the place. Remember this in the local elections.
Sounds like a sound analysis to me.
Once the fighting ends what will happen to the armaments US/NATO pumps into western Ukraine, and the radicalised insurgents/fighting men they are funding there?
They will turn into warlords/criminals/drug runners in a failed Ukrainian rump state and destabilise Poland and eastern Europe.
Like I said, Times muppets. And not least the ones who said that people support the “trans” nonsense.
Didn’t tyrant Gates warn us to “be ware of the next one”? Crook.
The best way to prevent the next pandemic would be to raze all the bio labs to the ground, ban all medical research, and jail Gates, Fauci, and the heads of all the culpable institutions for crimes against humanity. The ramp up of medical marketing over the last 20 years has been insidious and not for the greater good.
It’s just an advertorial for his new brew.
Oh for the days of the Birkenhead drill. How many children do these crooks want to kill again?
And I’ll tell you something. Last I heard, nearly a quarter of adolescent girls had said they were self-harming. And this was before the current shambles. And these crooks go and make it worse. Vile villains.
Not what I’ve heard, Hugh… a friend works in children’s mental health. She tells me that self-harming has practically vanished from the scene. It’s all about pronouns and binding your breasts these days, apparently.
“Meanwhile, Western “unfriendlies” respond flat-footed like disjointed cartoon characters angrily improvising piecemeal reactions sometimes doubling down on doubtful… if not plain dead-wrong… decisions which are later flip-flopped trying catch up with Russian-led events. Elmer Fudd comes to mind per Ref #5. All the sanctions imposed on Russia have been counter-productive and the Rouble today is stronger than ever. The underlying factor that governs the worldwide Big Bang Breton Woods III revolution (more on that later) is that, for better or for worse, Russia has a Plan and the West just reacts with hit-and-miss off-balance punches zig-zagging its way along without North or compass….
5 short questions
Are there any adults left in the European room ?
Why the unwarranted tone-deaf Russophobia ??
Does Europe want to provoke Russia into war ???
Are Europeans willing to keep the US and UK as their belligerent handlers????”
https://thesaker.is/russia-has-a-plan-the-west-does-not/
” In a previous article, I showed how and why MI6 and the CIA formed an alliance with Ukrainian Banderites during the Cold War. These men and women, who should have been tried at Nuremberg, became shadow soldiers for the victors. They could pursue their anti-Russian obsession at their service.
Following the numerous reactions of my readers, I would like to explain here how they took possession of the present Ukraine, then took over and continued the Second World War in several countries on their own. Above all, I would like to show that in the year 2000, these rabid people have changed from auxiliaries to US shock troops. They made a pact with the Straussians against Russia. It is this pact that has led to the present war.”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/04/thierry-meyssan/ukraine-the-second-world-war-continues/
” Everyone’s anti-war until the war propaganda starts. Nobody thinks of themselves as a warmonger, but then the spin machine gets going and before you know it they’re spouting the slogans they’ve been programmed to spout and waving the flags the flags they’ve been programmed to wave and consenting to whatever the imperial war machine wants in that moment.
…..
Propaganda is the single most overlooked and underappreciated aspect of our society. It has far more influence over how the public thinks, acts and votes than any of our official mechanisms for doing so, yet it’s barely discussed, it isn’t taught in schools, and even the best political ideologies barely touch on it relative to their other areas of focus.
All the fretting about Russian propaganda from establishment narrative managers comes so close to giving away their secret: that they know it’s possible to manipulate the way the public thinks, acts and votes using media. They just don’t admit that they’re the ones who are doing this.
It’s actually the weirdest thing in the world that there’s something that has been directly affecting our minds our entire lives, and which directly affects the way our entire society is organized, but we don’t talk about it constantly. It should be at the front and center of our attention.
But of course that’s the whole idea. Propaganda only works on those who don’t know they’re being propagandized. The US-centralized empire’s ability to hide its propaganda machine is a foundational element of its brilliance.
Being truly anti-war is necessarily a commitment to finding out not just what’s true about all the war narratives currently promulgated by the imperial war machine, but all the narratives you’ve been fed about the world since you were young. It’s a commitment to truth that takes on an almost spiritual quality in the way it informs every aspect of your life when truly espoused.”
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/04/27/everyones-anti-war-until-the-war-propaganda-starts/
“Why the unwarranted tone-deaf Russophobia ??”
They’re upset that Russia isn’t “woke” enough?
Lucky for Kenya that they’re not seen as a threat to these types…
(Though saying that, they’ve suffered enough from these lockdowns).
Agree, except that propaganda has a place in the dissiluisoned too, for various reasons including:
Stick at nought Hancock should be on trial for crimes against humanity (among other things). Tell me I’m wrong…
Matt Hancock went jogging round London.
Nobody threw any bricks at him.
The end.
(ps – sorry to disappoint you, but it looks like Tony Blair isn’t going to prison either).
Throwing bricks at Hancock would be a crime, putting him on trial wouldn’t be. Why do you conflate the two? You’re nothing but an agent provocateur, Private Fox.
Blair and Hancock lie, cause many thousands of deaths, and get rewarded. Assange facilitates the publication of facts and will likely spend the rest of his life in an underground cell in the US. The fact that this happens doesn’t make it right.
Blimey, if that’s the worst that happens, we’ll be lucky. The woke monsters are so used to getting their own way
Perhaps Musk should buy Ukraine and then settle with Russia.
Nato member states do not seem able to take the long view here. We, the British in particular, are busy handing over what few tanks we still have, stripping our stocks of NLAW and Starstreak man-portable air defence systems, abandoning our armoured infantry and close air defence capabilities, closing our major armoured manoeuvre training area in Canada and further reducing numbers when we will need every soldier, tank and gun and many more besides.
Never mind, at least we’re still paying for all the woke and zero carbon nonsense, and all the rest of it (until the money runs out – or doesn’t, if you believe MMT)
We need a coast guard and one nuclear warhead, nothing else.
The money can’t run out, but the wealth it represents will.
The German Gepard flak/tank supply farce. In German.
About 10 people still know how to operate them and the minimum training time to be able to hit a target with them was a year.
But they’ll probably either be destroyed on their way to the front/in the depot or end up in Africa anyway, like most of these weapons supplies. https://www.broeckers.com/2022/04/27/notizen-vom-ende-der-unipolaren-welt-20/
Strewth, and do they suppose that Russia is going to walk away from this with nothing to show for it? How are they going to do that then?
Western ‘intelligence’? The West has no intelligence: CoVid calamity, Net Zero suicide, self-harm from involvement in a war that does not concern it, it cannot win.
Next.
“The West’s idea of pumping the Ukraine full of ammo is, frankly, western psychotherapy, as are sanctions. They are designed to suppress the psychologically unbearable double reality that a) Russia is winning and has been winning from Day 1 and b) that the West, as a society, has committed full-spectrum suicide.”
Yes. There’s a book called “Death Of The West”. A pity Mark Steyn didn’t want to go into politics…
It’s isn’t the amount of ammo & weapons that matters, it’s how many are there to use them, how effectively, what the strategy? Does the Z person have a strategy except to flap around Europe complaining and demanding more?
The Taliban has been gifted $85billion of some sophisticated US military equipment, if it’s just a matter of materiel, Ukraine would be better off talking to the Taliban, unless they too busy conquering the Middle-East with all the stuff they have.
UK health agency cutting jobs and halting routine covid testing.
That’s one British disease I’d happily see spread across Australia.
“Propaganda is the single most overlooked and underappreciated aspect of our society. It has far more influence over how the public thinks, acts and votes than any of our official mechanisms for doing so, yet it’s barely discussed, it isn’t taught in schools, and even the best political ideologies barely touch on it relative to their other areas of focus.”
I seem to remember that someone at my school claimed that adverts did not influence what sweets he bought – he just bought what sweets he wanted (so he said). I’m not sure this was entirely accurate though…
He’s probably right that it didn’t influence what sweets he bought – you’re not going to buy stuff you don’t like just because you see an add for it – but those ads, even for the ones he didn’t like, may well have made him buy a whole lot more of the sweets he did.
So now that EVERY TV ad MUST show a happy mixed race family did I do wrong in marrying a Yorkshire beauty?
Yep: you should have gone for a Lancashire beauty!
Your a right cheekie monkie as the boss would say. Last week SHE celebrated 53 years of married bliss – I celebrated 5 years of happy marriage. Its a hood job she dose not blog.
or even a good job!
Yes – I realised as a teenager that whilst nobody believed Daz washed whiter, the ads formed their idea of how their kitchen should look and sold those.
Exactly.
You mean the “ads” have messages that are not obvious?!?
In the nebulous world of politics (and life), deception is, well, everywhere. In nature the cookoo is a good example. Even losing can be winning. l wonder if losing every seat in the coming local elections, as predicted on DarkNetBet, is actually winning, probably not.
Propaganda has never overlooked and unappreciated anywhere at anytime.
Trump gets it.
The others also seem to have forgotten what resulted from Versailles…
https://amgreatness.com/2022/04/27/too-many-republicans-want-endless-war-in-ukraine/
When you think about it, when was Trump wrong about anything. OK, the vaccines, I’ll sit back down.
Being wrong – everyone is from time to time – is not the issue, it’s what you do when you realise.
Versailles? The treaty was rarely enforced and not as punitive as claimed.
My source? Ludwig Von Mises, who was there at the time. Mercantilist fallacies were increasingly dominating the world at the time and that was the real villain, nit the Versailles treaty.
No. The Kaiser had borrowed to fund the war rather than printing more money or issuing war bonds as other nations did.
He reasoned that once Germany had won, he would plunder the vanquished, particularly France, to pay off the loans.
Having lost, that plunder was not forthcoming, the German economy was wrecked, France occupied the industrial Rhineland and took its output as reparations, and Germany had to use the income it was generating to pay other war reparations, so it was unable to reconstruct and pay its war debts, so it printed money which led to hyperinflation and economic collapse.
That was what Versailles did.
Until 1923, taxes in Germany accounted for no more than 35 percent of government expenditure. After the currency collapse, the Weimar government easily balanced the budget, that’s how devastating the treaty was.
Mises demonstrated this in his writing.
Do not blame the Marxist policies of the Weimar Republic on the Versailles treaty.
“WHO chief warns that the world is ‘increasingly blind’ to Covid” The world is in fact increasingly blind to WHO, its leadership and connections.
Great posts as ever here from Mark. And always a good day when I don’t have to put on my waders to make it through the river of verbal diarrhea from the twee brigade to get to the good stuff.
Billy showing his complete ignorance once again.
“The next ‘pandemic’ ” – so as suspected he has another one ready to go.
The last ‘pandemic’ (if it was) occurred 100 years ago. These things don’t turn up like buses.
Lockdown straight away – why? The last two years have confirmed irrefutably that lockdowns don’t work and actually make things worse.
Non-sensical jibberrish from a genocidal maniac who is proving to be a real threat to humanity and the planet.
I suppose if it were my investments that were under threat, I’d agree with Mr Gates that more of the stuff that didn’t work (shutdowns and booster shots) should be done faster and more completely next time China gives us an unwanted present.
I bought some art prints from Germany. The company demanded payment in Euros. How dare they? It’s blackmail!
I bought some butter, wine and a couple of sausage rolls in M&S yesterday and was blackmailed into handing over nearly £20!
Ah yes, Marks and Spensive!
Well, it was more than one bottle of the ruby nectar.
Well, I have some thoughts to share on that…
Never mind.
Masks for cows? So how would they eat, exactly? For those unfamiliar with our bovine friends, they spend an awful lot of time eating. I guess their instinct tells them it’s a good idea. If you put a mask in the way, I suspect they would just eat that too.
Probably a rather late April 1st Joke!?
Thanks Paul for giving me an opening to one my awful poems
AN OXYMORON
The global warming numpties
Just get more surreal each day,
As “scientists” here in Scotland
Try to wean our cows off hay;
They’ll stop them belching methane
Flatulating Co2,
Remove their carbon hoof prints
‘Till we have the greenest coo.
Our bovine friends contented
As they lie to chew their cud,
Not asked to ‘save the planet’
It’s a moot point if they could;
With farmers heavy burdens
Of legislation on their backs
We all pay through our nostrils
With this Ecologic tax.
As I sit and ruminate
About real scientists who demur,
They say cow made climate change
Is a load of old manure;
No honest politician
Will stand up and from the floor,
Call man made global warming
A wet dream of Albert G0re.
Fart Hancockwomble: the man who actually did kill Granny then warned teenagers not to kill Granny is now trying to blame everyone but himself for his actions.
He is totalitarian scum.
Too kind!
He was advised that breaking the law is actually OK when you’re a minister.
I see that disgraced formed Health Sec Matt Hancock’s ‘article’ pushing the blame on PHE for discharging elderly patients back into nursing homes without testing today in the DT has (yet again) no reader comments allowed. Quelle Surprise.
Doesn’t the buck stop at the top?
Has he no shame or sense of self awareness whatsoever???
That’s like asking if Hafthor Bjornsson doesn’t have dresses that make him look good….
I just checked the date, I think they’re a few days too early.
“Face masks for cows could help save the planet one burp at a time” – Methane-catching devices, an invention backed by the Prince of Wales could be fitted to herds to reduce carbon hoofprint of British beef…’
Methane isn’t carbon.
What is this obsession with face masks?
These folk are mentally ill, evidenced by the involvement of the Clown Prince of Windsor.
Methane is CH4, so if CO2 is carbon then so is CH4, but neither are. They are both molecules, while carbon is an atom. All this talk about reducing one’s carbon footprint demonstrates the ignorance of politicians, journalists, activists and the fool who would be King.
EU et all uses economic sanctions against Russia, Russia uses economic sanctions against EU – the clowns in charge are surprised and shocked.
What a bunch.
Trump waned them and they laughed at him – not laughing now are they?
(I am.)
You didn’t include the article by Col. Jacques Baud which I recommended. Disappointing.
Isabel Hardman’s piece in the Spectator has a good title: “The dark side of the ‘protect the NHS’ slogan”. So I read it with optimism, in the hope she would say something forceful. Unfortunately it’s just the usual typy-typy scribble by a cliché-head journalist who probably forgot everything she wrote as soon as she’d sent it in. It contains words such as these:
Sorry, Isabel – that doesn’t tell me anything about the “dark side” of the “protect the NHS” slogan. The subeditor seems to have much more sense than the scribbler…
https://jermwarfare.com/blog/piers-robinson-war-propaganda
Dr Piers Robinson is a political scientist and currently a co-director of the Organisation for Propaganda Studies, convenor of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media, an associated researcher with the Working Group on Propaganda and the 9/11 Global ‘War on Terror’ and a member of Panda.
This time, however, Piers focused more on, what’s known as, the fog of war, which is essentially the uncertainty in situational awareness experienced by participants in military operations.
In other words, when there is a war, there is mass propaganda.
How do we know what is true?
Tesla’s share price has dropped 17% in the past five days.
A takeover of Twitter by the shyster Elon Musk always seemed unlikely.
Seriously, who would lend such a large amount of money to a Ponzicoin-pusher who is so unstable he couldn’t resist manipulating a market by sending a fraudulent tweet that he then got busted for? Who would want such a guy to be CEO of anything? You wouldn’t know what on Earth he might do next! Musk is a brand, of course, so he has got brand value…until the day comes when the bottom falls out of his brand…and that may be soon…
Which doesn’t at all answer the question of what he is up to with his Twitter effort, or what someone is up to.
A grwat interview with renowned Russia expert Prof. Michael Brenner.
https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/15/michael-brenner-american-dissent-on-ukraine-is-dying-in-darkness/
“I truly believe that we are talking about collective psychopathology. And of course, collective psychopathology is what you get in a nihilistic society in which all sort of standard, conventional sort of reference points cease to serve as markers and guideposts on how individuals behave.
….
I believe there is growing and now totally persuasive evidence that when the Biden people came to office, they made a decision to create a crisis over Donbass to provoke a Russian military reaction, and to use that as the basis for consolidating the West, unifying the West, in a program whose centerpiece was massive economic sanctions, with the aim of tanking the Russian economy and possibly and hopefully leading to a rebellion by the oligarchs that would topple Putin.
…
Now, in what passes for grand strategy among the American foreign policy community, not just the Biden people, they still—they’ve had a dual hope: one, that they could drive a wedge between Russia and China, an idea they entertain only because they know nothing or have forgotten anything they might have known about each of those countries. Or, second, to in effect neutralize Russia by what we talked about: breaking the Russian economy, maybe getting some regime change, so that they would be a negligible contributor, if at all, to ally with the Chinese. And of course we have failed utterly, because all of those mistaken premises were mistaken.
And this utterly unprecedented hubris, of course, is peculiarly American.
…
currently, though, we don’t exercise restraint based either upon a certain political-ideological humility, nor on realism grounds. And that’s why I say we’re living in a world of fantasy—a fantasy which clearly serves some vital psychological needs of the country of America, and especially of its political elites.
…
there is simply—you know, we won’t censor—there is simply no place in the American conception of what’s real and natural for a United States that is not number one. And I think that’s ultimately what drives this anxiety and paranoia about China, and that is why we have not seriously entertained the alternative. Which is, you develop a dialogue with the Chinese that’s going to take years, that will be continual, in which you try to work out the terms of a relationship, about a world which will be different from the one we’re in now, but will certainly satisfy our basic interests and concerns as well as China’s. To agree on rules of the road, to carve out areas of convergence as well. You know, a dialogue of civilizations.”
His articles can be found at consortiumnews, the J***s! titled one is the farewell one mentioned, in which Johnson, Truss&co also feature as prominent examples of that kind.
https://consortiumnews.com/tag/michael-brenner/
I also attach a link to the excellent diplomacy article by Chas Freeman he mentioned at the end.
https://chasfreeman.net/diplomacy-as-an-instrument-of-statecraft-a-practicum/
‘…in threatening nuclear retaliation, Putin and Lavrov almost certainly mean what they say’
Unfortunately, much to their evident and blustering confusion, they are up against an elderly gentleman who is taking even more harmful chemicals than they are.
In order to prevent the next pandemic, we should lock down Bill Gates right away.
To Whom It May Concern
The curious use of the English language and overlong, aggressive, pro Putin bluster of many comments on here have an explanation.
Russian internet trolls based in an old arms factory in St Petersburg are targeting world leaders online and spreading support for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Online operatives were found to be ordering followers to target western media outlets and politicians, according to research funded by the UK government, which plans to share it with major online platforms and other governments.
Many of these followers, ‘fellow travellers’, belong to fringe political organisations in Europe and elsewhere in receipt of funding from Putin’s Russian political agencies.
The headquarters of the ‘internet research agency’ is allegedly located in rented space in St Petersburg’s Arsenal Machine-building Factory, a company that manufactures military equipment and technology.
The ‘internet research agency’ belongs to Yevgheny Prigozhin
Prigozhin’s activities on behalf of the state have made him notorious……Prigozhin, senior employees and his company are all under US indictment.
Rumbled