Sabotage!

The Origins Of This Word Are Not Clear

Despite what 'Starry Trex' would have you believe.  The urban legend about striking French railway workers throwing their wooden sabots (clogs to Northerners and the Dutch) into machinery to destroy it is not borne up by a comparison between wood and cast iron.  One does not make hammers out of oak trees*.  Art!

     I'm leading with this illo before pivoting sharply away to another one that you won't remember as it comes from the distant days of 2011.  Art!

From the dark and distant days of pre-BOOJUM!

     Meet young Charlie Gilmour, son of David Gilmour - yes, that David Gilmour - who was arrested for doing wicked naughty things at a student protest, including jumping on a car in Prince Charles' and Camilla's royal convoy.  He got four months in prison for the latter.

     I include the hapless Chaz here because one of his quotes at the time was that 'He was destroying the system from the inside.'

     Not seeing it myself, Charlie.     
     ANYWAY that's what I wanted to explore in today's blog, sabotaging an organisation from the inside.  Art!

     Here's a real-life case of self-sabotage.  Enron carried out fraudulent accounting practices on a massive scale in order to artificially boost their profits and conceal debts.  The accountants and executives who carried this out thus tanked the business and led to thousands of employees, all utterly innocent, to lose their jobs.
     We're going to look at a slightly less grandiose yet just as deliberate sabotage attempt by Worthy HOA Opponent, hereafter WHO, and their Youtube Reddit account of an epic long game.  Art!

     It began with the HOA imposing fines for WHO's trash bin in his back yard being partially visible from the road.  $150.  There was no appeal process** and to raise the issue WHO would have to attend the next HOA meeting, which took place only once per year**.  Fortunately it was in a week's time, so WHO turned up and tried to dispute the fines with the Vice-President, who was sneeringly dismissive, and the President, who was merely dismissive.

    This was unwise.  HUGELY unwise, because WHO proved to be sly, cunning,  manipulative and patient.  He never states his day job but FBI Legal Counsel sounds about right.  Art!

It's rude to point and dismiss people

     Several of the five HOA Board positions were up for election, so WHO put themselves forward for the Secretary post and since nobody else was interested, he got a shoo-in.  STEP ONE; establish secure internal appointment.  This gave them untrammelled access to the regular Board meetings, where they had to keep records of all minutes.  The other Board members wouldn't allow them to put forward any suggestions of their own**, however.

     WHO quietly observed the Board members and how they interacted over the course of several months, noticing that none of them liked each other, before the President put forward a ludicrous motion about fining members whose flowers were - get this 'Too bright'.  Art!

MY EYES!

     What WHO had learned over his tenure was that Prissy Unpleasant Prez, hereafter PUP, had a long-running feud with a neighbour who grew better flowers than she did.  Hence the stupid 'bright flowers' rule, which was not voted on there and then. STEP TWO: undermine other's authority. After the meeting he took to the Board's message-board and subtly stoked tensions there, a process made easier by PUP's unhinged ranting.  He suggested, faking concern for her mental health, that, in view of this, PUP wasn't able to cope with the position of Prez -  cue an outburst of calumnies from PUP which were so outrageous that she was immediately voted off the Board.  Which was now down to four members of the original five.  Art!

     Over the course of many months, WHO monitored social media for members of the HOA who were complaining about fines, the abuse of power and lack of accountability.  STEP THREE: enlist allies.  He helpfully suggested that these people attend the next HOA meeting and, even more helpfully, supplied e-mail addresses and phone numbers to send complaints and appeals to.  Art!

     Consequently, the next annual HOA meeting was packed with very angry people whom the Board were utterly unable to control and who focussed their ire on the Veep and two other members, one of whom was the Treasurer.  STEP FOUR: avoid all blame.  Nobody could criticise WHO, because all his policy and rule suggestions had been shot down**, remember?

     The Treasurer and Member-at-Large promptly resigned, not being at all willing to put up with the sheer enmity they experienced.  The VEEP - Vain Entitled Execrable Person - moved into the Prez's position, but three of the irate members were then voted onto the Board.  Over the following months the four Board members shot down every ridiculous fine she proposed, to her escalating anger.  Art!

     The new Treasurer did a deal of diligent digging, and what do you think he found?  That VEEP was in violation of at least fifty bylaws, amassing fines that totalled about $12,000, which she hadn't paid, had no intention of paying and wasn't going to pay.  Her being special and privileged and all.

     This default triggered a bylaw the ex-Prez had initiated: any HOA member with fines in excess of $10,000 could have their house foreclosed on.  A 'Special Board  Meeting' was called, which VEEP strutted into as if it were her own personal ticket-tape parade, a smug expression on her face that lasted until the Foreclosure Instrument was passed to her.  She argued fruitlessly before realising this was real and happening, and then bolted from the meeting.  Art!

     In other HOA come-uppances the denouement comes within days or weeks.  Not with this tale, as the courts grind exceedingly slow and it took six months for matters to be dealt with.  In the meantime WHO discovered that VEEP was undergoing an unwholesome divorce, as her long-suffering hubbo had given up on being married to a tyrant and had left her.  

     Then, four months into the foreclosure, VEEP's car suddenly vanished from her driveway and she was never seen again.  The bank moved forward with auctioning her house , and guess WHO stepped in to offer 60% of the asking price?  Yes, WHO, who knew how desperate VEEP was for a quick sale thanks to needing to find another cheap domicile, the divorce's legal fees and of course the foreclosure.  Art!

     As for ex-Prez, she also sold up, by choice, and moved to a condo with no HOA, probably out of shame and embarrassment.

     Hmmm, I did cut a few narrative corners there but we're still over 1,100 words in.  Time for some short Items!

Finished And Out

Okay, so I finished 'Plague War' by the late Jeff Carlson last night and - 'twas a bit meh.  Art!

     A lot of the first half is boringly repetitive scenes of three dirty smelly tramps trudging across bug-ridden boondocks.  You could have cut 50 pages of this out, Mister Editor.  Then there is the enormous invasion of the Western South Canadian seaboard by the Ruffians and Chinese, which is a relic of when people thought the orcs were a capable military force.  The fighting goes on at scale for half the novel - and then is finished in a single short paragraph.  The heroine creates exotic new nanotechnology out of baked beans tins and gaffer tape, it seems.

     Well, I shall be palming this and it's much better predecessor off to Darling Daughter.  There is a third volume which I'm not going to bother with.

Here's One Conrad Can Get Behind

Art!

     First of all, because British America is PART OF THE COMMONWEALTH, and they acknowledge fealty to Kingie, apart from the bloody-minded Frenchies, who have never forgiven us for Waterloo.

     Secondly, because at the outbreak of the First and Second Unpleasantness, the Canuckistanians were about five picoseconds behind This Sceptred Isle in declaring war upon the bally Hun.

     Thirdly, because they have the ROYAL Canadian Mounted Police.

     I have spoken. Well, typed, but you get my drift.

But Of Course She Is

Art!

     Just look at what's accompanying her.  The dimmer the vision the less she has to suffer.

*  A mallet is not a hammer. I have spoken.

**  BYLAW VIOLATION!

Pumping Jack Stash

No!  That Is Not A Typo

It is an hilarious pun, as punny as it gets so LAUGH OR REMOTE NUCLEAR TORMENTOR.  Thank you, I have spoken.

     First of all, I would like to address the issue of 'Jacks'.  There are many of these monikers infesting the modern world, not the least the ones that 'Monty Python' warned us about.  Art!

A lumbering jack

     Conrad wonders what British American lumberjacks in the bewooded hinterland made of this song.  I fear it is unwise to antagonise men armed with chainsaws and axes.

     ANYWAY then we have - Art!

     Flapjack!  A delicious combination of oats, syrup, sugar and butter which I cannot gorge on THANK YOU SO MUCH DIABETES.  Perhaps it's about time I did make some, and ate them very very slowly?  Put a pin in that one.

     ANYWAY AGAIN there is also 'Crackerjack', which was a children's television program that ran for thirty years, broadcast live on Friday afternoons at five to five.  Art!

     None of these are what this Intro is about - I am sure you're shocked and disappointed by this news - because we're going to be studying the 'Pump Jack', thanks to a Youtube video from 'History Of Simple Things' which I Bookmarked.  Art!

     The apt nickname for these apparati is 'Nodding Donkeys', as they ceaselessly move up and down, raising and lowering a long metal rod.  They were invented by one Walter Trout in 1925, so over a century ago and yet are still in use across the globe.

     So - what are they?  O I thought you'd never ask!  They are used to extract oil from wells where there is very little pressure, meaning that the oil does not naturally gush it's way to the surface and needs helping on it's way, the poor feeble stuff.  The first step in the process is to place a 'downhole pump' atop the underground reservoir, or 'stash'*.  Art!

     Here the barrel and plunger assembly are at the bottom of the borehole, inside the production tubing.  Lots and lots of steel piping - 'sucker rods' - are then placed atop the pump, all the way to the surface.  A piston inside these rods then moves up and down, alternately pulling oil into the pump and then moving it up the rods internally.  Art!

     The piston doesn't move the oil upwards any great distance with each movement, but the movement is cumulative and eventually brings it to the surface. where it is stored for onward transport.  Art!

     That's the 'walking beam pump', to give it the formal classification, at maximum and minimum height, and it's this engine that imparts motion to the sucker rod.  Let us look at this engine in more detail.  Art!

     TYPO AHOY!  That ought to be 'Downhole Pumping Unit'.  The 'Prime mover' is jargon for a motor, which runs a belt to the gear reducer, adjusting the turning rate to one that won't destroy the pump.  A massive counterweight helps the motor on it's downstroke, and the connecting rod moves the walking beam up and down.  The 'Pumping Unit' is more colloquially known as the 'Horse head' for obvious reasons, and on the upstroke pulls oil up the sucker rod, on the downstroke moving to the bottom of the down hole pump.  Art!

     There are several reasons why pumpacks are still in use extensively, despite being centenarians.  For one thing, they are relatively simple machines with a limited number of moving parts that reduces points of failure.  For another, they are very robust, and pump jacks over sixty years old are still in operation.  Then again, they are cheap to operate, requiring only occasional maintenance and inspection rather than having a dedicated crew in attendance.  Art!

     You were probably expecting another nodding donkey from the oilfields of West Texas, weren't you?  Say hello to Kimmeridge in Dorset, in the Allotment Of Eden, which sports it's very own pumpjack.  Remember what I said about pumpjacks being in use for decades?  This one began operating in 1964 and produces 65 barrels of oil per day.  Eat your heart out Ruffians.  I cannot find a quote for Dorset Crude, but Brent is down for $67.41 per barrel, so that comes in at over $1.5 million per annum, nothing to sneeze at for an installation that basically costs pennies to run.

     There is more to be written about pumpjacks on the territory of Perfidious Albion, which will be deferred to a later date.  I bet you can hardly wait.


The Algorithm Has A Brain Fart

Ah yes, Blogger, and it's traffic-tracking statistics, which have done the opposite of falling off a cliff.  More like ascended the mountain on a rocket-sled.  Art!

     I think this was a day in January.  Well, it does help me have over a million hits to the blog since it began - Gosh! - 13 years ago.

I Couldn't Resist

Conrad, bless his scrofulous little paws, has a weakness for Sour Cream And Chive Pringles, which he occasionally purchases as they are VERY VERY BAD FOR YOU INDEED and must be eaten sparingly in single amounts.  By wild coincidence, what did I see on my news feed?  Art!

     If they are 'just realizing' then they are a bunch of bafunes, because the contents are printed out on the labelling, for the love of Darjeeling.  BOOJUM! has often described the contents of various shampoos and other toiletries, because that's the kind of sad obsessive Your Humble Scribe is.  Let me explicate:

Dehydrated potatoes, sunflower oil, corn flour, wheat flour, sour cream seasoning, onion powder, disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate, dextrose, maize starch, wheat starch, salt, sugar, sour cream powder, sweet whey powder, sunflower oil - TYPO IT'S ALREADY BEEN MENTIONED!, citric acid, rice flour, maltodextrin, rapeseed oil and annatto norbixin.

      Yes, I already explained how thoroughly bad these are for you <eats two at once>.

The More Things Change -

The more they revert back to the same.  Art!

     Conrad was struck by the similarities in these two photographs, taken 108 years apart on different battlefields.  The bottom one is from Ukrainian lines in November of 2025 and shows a couple of soldiers keeping low in a gully, to avoid being spotted by enemy drones or forward observers.  The top photo is often used in articles about the First Unpleasantness and is one party of the 10th Battalion the London Scottish, carrying out a trench raid on the Teutons in 1917.  You can tell it's a trench raid as the men are carrying only weapons, no packs or harnesses, and they are 'jumping off' from a shallow trench dug to get them closer to Teuton lines - otherwise they'd be wiped out crossing No Man's Land, which stark and horrible lesson still applies today.

Another In Our Ever-Growing Library

From the gruesome to the grotesque in one easy step.  Art!

     I will be merciful and not use 'Extra-Large' for this illo.  Here you get a splendid perspective on Donnie Dorko's second neck, rather than a mere chin, as it seems to extend all around his body instead of being modestly bounded by his mentum*.

Not Sure How We Got Here

Further to Donold Judas Trump (see above), one of his most bootlicking sycophantic bottom-kissers used to be Marjorie Traitor Greene, the Kremlin-echoing Representative for Georgia's 14th District.  Art!

She makes trailer-trash seem classy by comparison

     Conrad's unkind nickname for her was 'Bloaty McBloatface', in an echo of the British Arctic exploration ship the public christened 'Boaty McBoatface' - a whole other story.  Now, not only is she dead-set against DJ Tango, she's retiring from the House whilst spitting venom at her former idol.  Who would have foreseen this on this date last year? and this is not so much about Politics as spite, pettiness and an awareness that people don't like her very much.  

      She may be able to get work as an after-dinner speaker at Burger King.

Finally -

Ending on another Biercism.

"Plan, v: To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result."

*  Not an oilfield term but we have to link with today's title somehow.

**  Latin for 'chin'.  He seems to have - waitforitwaitforit - mo' mentum.

Pecan't Park There!

I Am Not Sure How Long I Can Sustain This Intro

It's derived from a Youtube vlog from the 'Malicious Compliance' sub-Reddit, and only lasts 4 minutes, so I might have to do a ton of - er - 'padding'.  Paddington.  Which desperate reaching allows me to invoke the world's politest talking bear.  Art!

     Don't knock marmalade sandwiches until you've tried them.

     ANYWAY this story is centred around a grove of pecan trees, because where else do you think pecans come from?  Conrad confesses that he had no idea prior to this tale as my sole experience with them is using them in cakes.  Art!

     They are different from walnuts - although part of the same family - in having less wrinkles and less of an aftertaste, in addition to being rather pricey.  You get what you pay for.  Pecan trees are a variety of hickory, the lumber of which is also valuable.  Art!

     Say hello to a grove of hickory pecans, in Georgia, since the pecan hickory only grows in the south-east of South Canada in states such as The Peachy One or Texas.  Note that the trees are widely spaced for maximum light and water, that the ground is level and the grass is very short.  These are all in order to facilitate mechanical harvesting of the nuts, and if Art will put down his bowl of coal -

     NUN informed that the ground has to be as flat as a snooker table because otherwise the harvester will miss pecans lying on the ground in dips or ruts.  A two-inch deep depression can hide pecans worth thousands of dollars, which then have to be picked up by hand, rather defeating the object of having an expensive machine to collect them.  Art!

     

     Enter the bottomhole that NUN dubbed 'Dude', which is not opprobrious enough for me, so we will call him 'Rude Dude'.  He lived across from the pecan grove and drove one of those South Canadian motorised behemoths called an '18-wheeler', a tractor unit and the trailer.  He parked in the pecan grove, creating long pecan-hiding ruts.

     NUN's dad, giving Rude Due the benefit of the doubt, goes and informs him he's parking on private property, is causing damage to the grounds and not to do it again.  Rude Dude apologises (whilst crossing his fingers) and drives away.  NUN's dad goes over the ruts with a tractor and blade midweek.  Art!

     Problem solved?  Don't you believe it, or this would be a very short Intro.  

     One week later it happens again.  NUN's dad - I think I'll dub him Nut Investor Juglandaceae* Not Appreciative, NINJA hereafter -   calls the sheriff.  Rude Dude moves his truck.  A week later the truck is back, sheriff arrives again, Rude Dude claims he 'forgot'.

     Plot twist - I bet you didn't see this coming - he didn't forget.  He lives across the road from NUN, but the depot he drives to in his car to get allocated a truck is 30 miles away.  Thus he saves having to drive his car back home from the depot, meaning less petrol consumed.  Also, these truckers can get written up and/or fined if their cab isn't clean and tidy (it belonging to the company not the driver), which the supervisors aren't going to find out as it's not going back to be inspected.  Art!

     After Rude Dude has done this 7 times, he finally gets a trespass citation, which is a bit toothless as there are no fines levied.  He parks up again the next week.

     Here an aside.  Conrad has worked out that the very least cost to replace 18 slashed tires on an 18-wheeler would be $4,500.  Not advocating anything, just saying.

     This time the Sheriff himself comes out, not his deputies.  Rude Dude makes his obligatory 'I forgot' excuse and moves his truck.  The Sheriff, who seems a wise old campaigner - Art!

    -  tells NINJA that it's difficult for him to catch Rude Dude actually committing the trespass as it happens, since the county office is 30 miles away and they don't have that many deputies.  Not only that, photographs of the rutted grove look hugely unimpressive and wouldn't persuade a court that any major damage had been done.

     'However,' continues Sheriff The Most Valuable Player, 'If there was something different, like a theft of services going on .....' at which he probably gave a huge wink to NINJA.  Art!

"Pre-pay.  Violators will be towed.''

    Next day each of the pecan trees had a sign nailed to it, bearing the legend above.

     Rude Dude ignores the signs.  

     Then a deputy and heavy-duty tow truck turn up, which brings Rude Dude a-shrieking and a-hollering from his home as they prepare to tow away his truck and trailer.  To add a cherry on top, the Sheriff had been to take photographs of the errant truck parked beneath all those clearly visible signs.

Heavy-duty tow truck.  Quite the beast!

     The truck owner had to come out to sort matters.  He tried to haggle for 3 hours but ended up cutting a cheque for - waitforitwaitforit - $7,800, covering the parking, tow truck, the damage caused, the signs and - NUN was grinning smugly at typing this - beer enough for a year for NINJA's weekly poker games.

     Rude Dude no longer parks there and had the $7,800 deducted from his wages for 2 years <drum roll cymbal crash>.

     Wowsers, over 900 words and I was worried we'd not get beyond 500.

Conrad Is ANGRY!  O So ANGRY!  ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY!

Er - hang on whilst I remember what I'm angry about.

     O yes - the Codeword solutions.  Them again.  SIT BACK DOWN!  Allow me to explicate.

BAROQUE: Conrad is quite familiar with this word as it applies to the organ music and classical compositions he listens to.  Let me define it: "A 17th Century style of music characterised by extensive use of the thorough bass and of ornamentation."  Your mileage may vary, you philistines.  Art!

Johann Sebastian Bach totally rocking out

EXULT: Not exactly in common use, is it?  Meaning 'To be joyful or jubilant, especially because of triumph or success', and yes it has a Latin root.  Art!

They exult, apparently.

VIGNETTE: This one has to have a French origin.  I recognise it from various descriptions of worthy literature, where the author attempts to paint a broad canvas by describing many small scenes.  Technically it means: 'A short graceful literary essay or sketch.'  Art!

Notable for vignettes

The Clock Is Ticking

For King Piggy, that is.  For those of you who have not concerned yourselves with the daily doings of Fat Caligula, his cognitive abilities have sharply declined since he campaigned for Prez in 2016, as has his ability to walk without wandering all over the carpet.  In case you missed it, he hates NATO, he hates the EU, he hates Europe and he hates not getting a Nobel Peace Prize, because Obama got one.  Art!

     He also has less than three years of his term to run, since he will be out of the White House on January 20th 2028 at the very latest, because he may well keel over dead before then  - see above paragraph.  In fact, if Republicans lose control of the House Of Representatives and/or the Senate, then Democrats will be able to stonewall all his policies and prevent him from doing anything.  Impeachment is verrrry unlikely as Republicans would need to join Democrats to make a two-thirds majority, and current Republicans possess all the spine of jellyfish.

     Still, some people in the Ice Cream Bandit party (see above) have been trying to reassure Europeans that DJ Tango has a limited shelf life and can we then go back to the way it was before, pretty please with Canderel on?

     I must say, this political trainwreck is incredibly entertaining stuff to watch from this side of The Pond.

What Nonsense Is This?

Art!

     PORRIDGE IS NOT JUNK FOOD!

     Provided you eat it the way Conrad does: oats and skimmed milk.  NO SALT NO SUGAR AND DEFINITELY NO FRUIT.

     I have spoken.

*  The family pecans sit within.  Walnuts too.

Bine Ai Venit Pelerinii!

Despite The 'Ai' Nothing To Do With Computers

Nor is it anything out of Ol' Tolky's imaginary languages or races, as you might have pictured the Pelerinii as one of the peoples living in Angmar before the Witch-King took over.  

     Nope nope nope, it is, of course - obviously! - the Romanian for 'Welcome back pilgrims!' as we continue to trawl past BOOJUM! for posts on this same date.  Art!

     Nothing to do with the blog, I just felt like posting from a page I Bookmarked, entitled 'Metallic Bras In Space!' because both these bright young things are whizzing about in atmosphere, wearing helmets and bathing suits.  Somehow that seems under-dressed for the vacuum between planets, but I suppose it garners attention rather than logic.

     ANYWAY let us carry on with the Links for today.

2025

BOOJUM!: I Am The Law -

2024

BOOJUM!: Buddy, Can You Spare Seven Hundred And Fifty Bucks?

2023

BOOJUM!: Laud Of The Rings

2022

BOOJUM!: I Have The Future Now

2021

BOOJUM!: The Swords Of A (Hundred) Thousand Men

2020

BOOJUM!: You Don't Need A River For This Bridge

2019

BOOJUM!: When You Don't Give A Tuck

2018

BOOJUM!: The Word Absurd

2017

BOOJUM!: A Touch Of Caution

2016

BOOJUM!: " - But There Are Lemons!"

2015

BOOJUM!: THE ATOMIC COD OF NOVGOROD!

2014

BOOJUM!: Serendipity? Coincidence? Aliens Subverting Reality?

Once Upon A Time

In A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Don't get your hopes up, I'm not going to be waffling on about George Lucas and his 'homage' to 'The Hidden Fortress' and Carrie Fisher as an exotic slave girl - in a brass bra, of course - and killer koala bears.  Mind you, using that title does allow me to prod Art into semi-sentience and generate a click-baity image.

IT IS NOT A 'STAR'!

     You see, the words I want to focus on today are 'Far, Far Away'.  What is the Greek for 'Far'?  O I thought you'd never ask!  'Tele'.  What is the Greek for ''Writing'?  'Graph'.  Hence we get 'Telegraph', which you can transpose as 'Writing from afar' if there's a touch of poetry about you.  What's the name for a message sent by telegraph?  Art!

So conservative it is nicknamed the 'Torygraph'

     'Telegram'.

     For Lo! we are going to be following the recent Ruffian imbroglio involving the throttling and banning of the messaging platform 'Telegram' in their beknighted land where the shadows lie, and so do the authorities.  Firstly, Starlink was switched off by Elong Tusk, who hoped for a bit of good publicity out of it; this was the Ruffian operational and strategic-level comms platform.  Art!

Telegram icon*

     There are 75 million users of Telegram in Mordorvia, with up to 85% of people aged between 12- 24 using it, so just over half the orcs use it, meaning there has been a massive backlash about it's banning.

     Why ban such a popular platform?  Two reasons.  One is that it's an uncensored means of communication that allows the orcs to pass home truths to one another; in other words, a channel that is in competition with the official Kremlin narrative.  Two, the Ruffian state is desperately trying to get their serfs to use an official government comms channel called 'Max'.  Art!

     Max is an FSB app that turns a mobile phone into a device that works for them, allowing them to eavesdrop via the mike and read all comms sent on it.  As one young orc put it: "It's spyware.  We didn't sign up for tha," and this attitude is prevalent amongst Telegram users.  So, it has to die.  Art!

     This is an epic case of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face as well as slitting one's throat to spite one's neck, after shooting oneself in both feet and inserting them in one's mouth.  Telegram, it transpires, it essential to orcses on the front lines.  Art!

Ruffian drone

     Pre-throttle, identifying a target for drones would take as little as two minutes for the orcs.  Now, having to use radios to go vertically up and down the chain of command, and possibly horizontally to different commands, takes hours.  Targets of opportunity are thus long gone.  Likewise artillery strikes.  Also, since the orcs in Ukraine are always desperately short of essentials (such as water and food!), they used Telegram to raise funds for things like body armour, helmets, first aid packs, ballistic plates and so on, by messaging people in Mordorvia.  Now they have to go without.  Art!

    
     A brace of very, very angry Ruffian politicians calling whoever is responsible 'scoundrels' and 'idiots' and 'They should go to the SMO!'  Conrad will pass over the fact that many of these wives will be fingers-crossed that their wife-beating hubbo will get droned and earn her a nice widow's benefit**.  Art!

     That's a caricature of Peskov, the Ruffian Press Secretary and official mouthpiece for Putinpot.  I shall quote him about the Telegram shutdown: "I don't think it's possible to imagine frontline communications being provided via Telegram or some other messenger.  It's difficult and impossible to imagine such a thing."

     As shown above, Telegram was vital for the orcs on the front lines, displaying a staggering level of ignorance and complacency from The Bog Brush about the real situation.  This has, obviously, enraged Ruffian milbloggers whom are aware of the truth.  Putinpot would much rather his orcs suffer in Ukraine that have his slave population informed and up to date.  Art!

Anna

     An insight into this whole farrago was proposed by Anna Danylchuk, on the channel 'Anna From Ukraine'.  She explained that Bunker Midget Gargoyle doesn't use the internet and thus has absolutely NO IDEA how important Telegram was in communicating.  Instead, he was determined to get Max out there, and this is the consequence.  Works for me!

     'Chris_0Wiki' on Twitter has put up a long explanation on Twitter of why the Ruffians don't have a proper home-grown comms network, which I may detail at a later stage.  I bet you can hardly wait.

Conrad Rebuts

Art!

     NO!

     Next***.

Not So Sweet

More more more of TREE LAW!

     This one comes from a Comment on a 'Steve Lehto' Youtube vlog that was itself about tree law.  Art!

A maple tree

     Indicting Commenting Home Tree Owner, hereafter ICHTO, had a neighbour, Dismissive Ignorant Churlish Knave, hereafter Intrusive Churlish Knave = ICK, who was deliberately trespassing on their land to carry out landscaping for his new house.  ICHTO thus got a surveyor to come out and place a 'pin' marking the legal boundary between properties.  Art!

A surveyor's pin

     ICTHO came home one afternoon to find that this 100-foot 100-year old 4-foot diameter maple tree, firmly on his property, had been cut down by a contractor hired by ICK.  They went to court.  The contractor confirmed that ICK had deliberately moved the pin to make it seem as if the tree was on his side of the property line.  ICK brazenly stated that he'd wanted the tree gone the instant he moved in and was happy to pay the fine for having it cut down, imagining that it would only be a couple of thousand dollars.

     He thus blatantly proved he knew nothing about Tree Law.

     The court was NOT impressed or amused.  They fined him $1,000 per inch of diameter of the tree, and because this is Tree Law, the fine was automatically trebled, becoming $144,000 in total.

     ICK had to sell his house to pay the fine.

I Don't Think I've Used This Already

Probably mentioned it whilst I was reading 'British Official History Military Operations Egypt And Palestine'.  You see, the Teutons and especially the Ottomans tried to stir up trouble in Egypt during the First Unpleasantness, by bribing and arming Senussi tribes in the interior.  Perfidious Albion took a very dim view of this and arranged a punitive expedition consisting of motor transport and armoured cars.  Art!

     Motor transport in foreground, Rolls-Royce armoured cars in the background.  Art!

     

     No radios or telephones (nor telegraphs!) so they communicate with other widely-separated patrols by semaphore and you can see the other ranks keeping an eye on their compatriot's signals with binocular and telescope.  Art!

     Give up, Senussi rebels, the Camel Corps have arrived!  Art?

     An essential part of any campaign in the hinterland of Egypt: camels carrying tanks of water, as oases were few and scattered, there were no rivers, streams or lakes or ponds, nor did it rain until winter.  Art!

     A column of Ottoman prisoners being walked into imprisonment at El Arish.  Yes, there are only two guards, the chap on foot and the Egyptian on a donkey, because where can they escape to?  Boundless waterless desert on all sides.

The Krembots Are Worried

One of the people I follow on Youtube is 'Paul Warburg', an independent commentator on geopolitics, usually featuring the war in Ukraine.  He just speaks to camera in whichever part of the great outdoors he inhabits in South Canada, with no flashy visuals or graphics.  He is unabashedly pro-Ukrainian, and has been for his channel's lifetime.  Art!

     Well, evidently what he says has rattled some perches in the Kremlin, as they have now put out fake AI vlogs of him praising Bunker Midget Gargoyle and saying that Mordorvia has won the war.  A bit premature, frankly, and proof that he needs to keep on doing what he's doing, except more so.

Finally -

Another quote from my QI book, this time, self-referentially, from Ambrose Bierce.

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."

*  I wondered what all those memes with paper planes on fire were about

**  Some 'black widows' make a business out of serial marriages to orcs being sent to Ukraine

***  Is this lady one of these same 'black widows'?  Because I see nothing spiderish about her otherwise.