Thanks again Tom.
Open Thread Weekend 1 March 2025
- WolfmanOz at the Movies #98
- Open Thread – Mon 31 March 2025
- When the Trees Block the Woods
- Open Thread – Weekend 29 March 2025
- Open Thread – Thurs 27 March 2025
Bletchley code breaker Betty Webb dies aged 101 – A decorated World War Two code breaker who spent her youth…
Ben Garrison.
Henry Payne.
Tom Stiglich.
Some people here appear to think that Z Man was prompted to challenge Trump and that it was all for show. Now, there could’ve been some goading, but even if there was, the last segment of the meeting would’ve ended up the same. Z Man is in a mental state that makes him totally unable to reach an accommodation. Unfortunately, the Europeans aren’t helping with his mental fixations.
“Some people” I take to be directed at me JC.
Apologies if you are talking about something else.
I trust that Trump is God’s tool, and the outcome, eventually, will be what it needs to be:
Europeans facing up to the need to up their arms and munitions production.
No American feet on grounds in Ukraine as the American public won’t accept that.
An end to the policies around the West that are irritating the populace: too much immigration and all the wet and woke rubbish,
None of this is going to look pretty.
As seen in the Oval Office with Z.
”Z” needs to walk a narrow line between the realities of American expectations, and the home front.
It’s going to be very interesting to watch what happens.
The German election results are a warning: stop the policies that are a huge irritation to the local populace, or face electoral oblivion and nationalist parties that have an antipathy to the European Union and sympathise with Russian desires to exert themselves over the old Soviet sphere.
This negotiation over Ukraine is only another iteration of an ongoing rearrangement of alignments.
Nope, it wasn’t .
Wrangling about who contributed more in dollar figures to Ukraine is stupid, given that most of it is in gear.
The price of a 30 year old box of ammunition is very different depending on if you are in the middle of an existential fight and need whatever you can get your hands on, or if you have that stockpile to get rid of because it’s obsolete.
Add in delivery, and who the hell knows.
Is the price the purchase price from 30 years ago, the replacement cost at today’s prices, or whatever the purchaser would be prepared to pay on the open market?
Consider that it is an entire package, weapons, munitions, training, support, the ability to get it where it needs to go, you aren’t buying a platform, or munitions, you’re buying into an entire US system.
That’s what the USA is selling, entry into an entire system, which is competing against rival systems.
That’s also what is at risk: no one wants to buy into a system that can be pulled out from under them when they really need it.
Finished reading an IPA Review magazine in the Qantas lounge today, and rather than throw it out, I placed it carefully with all the other magazines there. Dunno if someone took it to read, but it was gone from the rack about five minutes later:)