Well, Not Everything
You can still breathe without paying a Respiration Tax in Ruffia, for the time being at least. One is minded of that quote from "Total Recall" where one of the great unwashed public on Mars is bemoaning about "Cohaagen raised the price of air again". It'll come in Ruffia, sooner rather than later. Art!
Currently grooving to The Mars Volta and "A Zed And Two Naughts" because it's an awesome song and that's all the justification I need.
ANYWAY back to Mordor, where they are banning the export of petrol for the next 6 months. Their reason is that the refineries need 'planned maintenance', which is the reason they gave in September last year, so either their maintenance is rubbish or they're lying. Go on, guess which one of those is the truth.
Thanks to Joe Blogs for putting all the official Ruffian data in an easily understandable format, which makes it harder for Peter The Average to lie about things.
Petrol Export Ban: This went into force as of 01/03/2024 and will run for 6 months. The last export ban lasted for 3 months, so Putinpot is alleging his refineries need to have 9 months downtime out of the year. Yeah, nope. This will cost the Ruffian economy $35 billion, when they need every humble million they can get. O what's this? 'Increased consumer and agricultural demand' also to blame. Nope, nope. Art!
Cohaagen chokes
Russia Bans Trainers: Or trainers that don't sit up and sing the Ruffian National Anthem, which I reproduce here:
"One Rig to rule them all,
One Rig to find them - "
Oil, you see, central to the Ruffian mindset and economy both. Art!
3 years in the gulag
Can't have Ukrainian colours out on the streets, can we?
Ruffian Agriculture: One of the excuses - ooops, sorry, 'reasons' - given in September last year for a ban on petrol exports was that the agricultural sector desperately needed petrol to gather in the harvest. This was actually a credible reason, because the harvest season in Mordor is from August to November. There is absolutely no overarching demand for fuel in agriculture in March. Or April. Or May. Dog Buns! colour me shocked, the Ruffian authorities are lying! Art!
Ruffia Bans Blank Sheets Of Paper: This one might concern any stationers doing business in Mordor, especially if they stock anything in A3 or larger. Art!
5 years in a gulag
Ruffian Oil Refineries: There are 44 gigantic Ruffian refineries currently operating in the land of shadows, all of which require a constant through-put of oil in order to operate efficiently and effectively. Art!
Well, the bad news for Putinpot is that the amount of crude oil being processed in these plants has decreased significantly, from 400,000 tons per day to 250,000 tonss per day, a drop of 34% from pre-Special Idiotic Operation levels. This means about 13 refineries need to close down thanks to no longer being economic to run, which simply hasn't happened: doing so would be an implicit admission that things have gone badly wrong. Puffy Petrol Pimp would rather keep them running at a loss than have them shut down, because that would mean all the investment in them was wasted, because that fall in production isn't ever going to be reversed. The orcs who staff them don't want to lose their jobs, either, because then they'd get mobilised and sent to the Meatgrinder. Art!
It has a grindy feel to it, don't you think?
By simply creating this blog, Your Humble Scribe has violated 37 different Ruffian laws, which is really bad new as I fully intend to become worse over time. Art!
This means 7 years in the gulag
Whilst On The Subject
Of The Mars Volta, we were doing a little musical critique of their song "Cicatrix ESP", which, now that I come to think of it, reminds me of the Blue Oyster Cult song "Flaming Telepaths", because both songs imply that, to acquire remarkable superhuman mental abilities, you need to suffer horribly in the first place.
Right, I'd better go check on this week's Clootie Dumpling, it's been simmering in the pot for about 3 hours now and ought to be done, unless the cloot and baking parchment didn't keep the water out. See you in five.
What Madness Is This?
Conrad has been following the Blogger stats on BOOJUM! for the past couple of months with a sense of puzzled disbelief. Whilst I would like to believe the flatteringly enormous traffic totals shown on the Stats page, I cannot really credit them. For a single day, 29th February, the totals seemed realistic - 40 on a Thursday is quite credible - and then when March rolled around, so did my eyeballs. Art!
Those Ukrainians who are blasting Ruffians out of the sky seem to have tapped into this whatever-it-is as well. Art!
"City In The Sky"
We intrude on a conversation between Davy, head of Arcology One, and the Vice President of 'Washington', one of the two American spheres in orbit.
Miss Martigan whispered to the Veep.
‘Is that why they evacuated?’ he asked.
Both American spheres had seen a minor exodus along the coastline of the
‘Partly. We expected an attack on
the town once these things realised we knew about them. It’s what happened to Forrest – the township
our first shuttle landed at.’
Miss Martigan whispered again.
‘How could I forget. Davy, did
your people destabilise an asteroid?
That impact in the Gulf off the coast is too much of a coincidence. I can tell you, that worried us.’
Haritanian sighed.
‘Yes, that was us. Our – ah –
adviser, Doctor John Smith, told us to drop one of the Trojans into the
ocean. To scare off the aliens.’
‘Hasn’t worked, then, has it!’ replied the Veep, smiling thinly. That was one mystery out of the
way.
‘I can see I’m not persuading you, Marty. Look, the reason I came over in person was to
warn you that your Carlsbad Crew might have been compromised. These aliens, called “Lithoi” apparently, can
control human minds. They did it to the
Mayor of New Eucla, had him working for them and trying to kill Doctor Smith. The control wears off over time so they
repeat the process.’
Making an uphill slog there, Davy.
Life Imitating Life
Allow me to bring in an illustration from the BBC News webpage. Art!
Whilst walking into Lesser Sodom this afternoon, I encountered what I thought to be a dog on the path in front of me.
Nope, nope. It was a small goat. As I neared it, said animal trotted forward along the path. Your Modest Artisan henceforth crossed the road to avoid sending Goaty into traffic. Goaty instead went up into the herbage alongside the road. At least one driver paused to take a picture of Goaty. I only thought afterwards about taking a photo, so you have to bear with me on the above.
Finally -
How many times can I use the "MARCH FORTH!" theme?
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