Broe-lling Thunder

This Isn't Actually About Any Kind Of Weather Phenomenon

Today's title, in fact, relies upon you being aware of 'Operation Rolling Thunder', which you DOG BUNS OUGHT TO BE! since it was featured in the blog only mere days ago.  Tread lightly, gentle reader, for the Remote Nuclear Detonator stands ready aye ready, lest you transgress.  Art!

     This is up here for a reason, which we'll get to shortly.  Yes, it's from "Full Metal Jacket", Stan The Man's Vietnam epic shot in the London Docklands.  Art!

     This Champ Of Scamp is Jake Broe, Youtube ace performer and ex-Missileer in the South Canadian Air Force, and English tutor in South Korea before that.

     So, Jake volunteered to 'give up' his 40th birthday this year, requesting that folks donate instead to a fund-raiser he was initiating in order to buy a couple of  pick-up trucks to be used as medical vehicles in Ukraine.  He aimed for about $40,000.

     BIG FAT HAIRY SURPRISE!  Art?

     

     No, that's not a typo.  There are going to be dozens of trucks going to Ukraine, and bear in mind that total of over a million was totalled in less than a week.  Compassion fatigue?  What's that?

     Joe did ask for suggestions about what to name the convoy of vehicles due to be heading to Ukraine, which OF COURSE - OBVIOUSLY! - Conrad had to accept as a challenge, which is where the 'Broe-lling Thunder" comes from.  I did also suggest "A-Broe-Cadabra" which nobody has gotten back to me about.  Strange, that.  Art!

     

John Cena's line in "Suicide Squad" comes to mind

     Jake was also analysing the recent flurry of 'ceasefire' activity generated by the Ruffians from the weekend onwards.  Conrad has seen fellow Tweeters on that channel bemoaning the fact that the Ruffian trolls, bots and fanbois are all echoing that Ukraine ought to negotiate a ceasefire.

     This is where our initial picture takes centre stage, because at that exact point the Marines were calling to each other "Cease Fire!  Cease Fire!" thanks to all the enemy being - there is no polite way to put it - extremely dead.  Don't waste your ammo on corpses is the bottom line, having ACQUIRED A POSITION OF SUPERIORITY.

     So, why is Bunker Grandad trying to push for a ceasefire?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Art!

     This photo encapsulates the relationship between The Populous Dictatorship  and Ruffia.  China is a lot bigger, and there is considerable distance between the two.  Xi has never forgiven Putinpot for trying to force China into supporting the Special Idiotic Operation, which egregious miscalculation has repercussions even today.  Dimya tried to float the idea of a gas pipeline from Siberia to China, so he can try and make some kopeks back on his now-redundant natural resources.  

     'Great!' said the Chinese.  'Build and pay for it yourselves!'

     They are not remotely interested in bankrolling a project that would cost tens of billions - it's a looooong way from the Siberian gas-fields to the Chinese border - take years to accomplish and would be horribly vulnerable to A Mysterious Un-Identified Drone flying into it.  Art!

 

     Let's retitle that: "Where the natural gas pipelines may have run between Russia and China"

     Ooops.  Likewise, China may be supplying Ruffia with golf buggies and motorbikes, but they absolutely will not supply unequivocal military hardware.  Ruffia is a minor trading partner of China and Xi isn't going to risk the other 90% of his economy thanks to secondary sanctions.  This is probably not what the Fun-Sized Foot Fiddler wanted or expected out of the meeting, so he's cast upon his own <thinks> peregrinations.  No Chinese support or money bar some Honda knock-offs.  Art!

Some people have a hard time grasping the concept of "STOP SHOOTING!"

     Wowsers, this is only about 20% of what I had to write about the Kremlin Gremlin's ceasefire proposals.  I think I'd better end this Intro here lest it become the whole of today's blog*.

     Laterz!

EGAD!  What?

Conrad was scrolling through various web pages, looking to see the inspirational flint that struck metaphorical sparks, when he spotted this.  I can't even begin to comment on it.  Art!

     I dunno.  Perhaps the article writer hails from sub-Saharan Africa, where drought is a perpetual foe.  Conrad is minded of that rhyme by James Thurber 

Early to rise, 

And early to bed.

Makes a man healthy, 

And wealthy,

And dead.

     I am looking out of the window in my Sekrit Layr and the skies are gunmetal grey, the rain is falling and all is wet.  None of it good.

Why One Ought To Never EVER Throw Books Away

I must have bored you already with details of how "The Cauldron" by Zeno was a novel I had once, many decades ago, and which is only purchasable nowadays by taking out a second mortgage.  The plot thickens.  Art!

     I'm afraid that I also had "Play Dirty", which is a novelisation - I think - of the film, which I've not seen for decades but which pretty thoroughly demolishes any idea you, the audience, might have about how warfare is noble or glorious**.  Art!

     

War veteran Michael in a war film

     Dog Buns, I'm now getting curious about the film.  Do I need to seek it out on DVD?  Well, no, 'need' is the wrong word here.  'Want', on the other hand, is a whole lot more applicable.

"City In The Sky"

We now take a narrative detour to discover how the alien Lithoi behave amongst themselves, and it isn't pretty.  Not at all.

Orskan 94 happily presumed he was being summoned to the higher levels for an official  congratulation on his section’s construction of a flying eye already, whilst still fabricating the giant camouflage sheet for the baseship.  His artificer minions were also building missiles, but at a lower priority, and he’d reduced the shifts working on the flying eyes now that one was actually operational.  His workers needed sufficient rest and recuperation or they’d begin to make stupid mistakes, despite what Arkan 22 might order.

     He took the lifting platform, musing on their Contract.  Personally he wouldn’t have ever dreamed of taking it on – with clients like this you could never be entirely sure they wouldn’t simply exterminate you once the terms were fulfilled.  Wriggling his limbs in the Lithoi equivalent of a sigh, he condemned their clients to the Outer Darkness.  Cyborgs!  Sufficiently organic to be susceptible to anger, insufficiently mechanical to be predictable.

     The giant lift came to a halt and he undulated out, only to be surprised by an escort of two armed and armoured guards from the little-used Internal Security detail.  One of them directed an electronic suppressor at him, and a worried Orskan felt all his hi-tec gadgets die.

     ‘What is the meaning of this!’ he blustered, drawing himself up to full height.

      Which is all of five feet, if you need to know.

History Repeating Itself Just With Different Uniforms

If you goldfish remember what I was blogging about earlier this year, you'll remember that it involved the British (and Commonwealth) campaign in Palestine, where it was verrrrry dodgy trying to supply the forces there by sea, along the Palestinian coastline.  'Campaign' during the First Unpleasantness, of 1914 - 1918 vintage, just to be clear.  Art!

     This is one of the reasons why there are no ports or harbours along the Gaza coastline; it's a hostile shore thanks to weather and geography and the British (and Commonwealth) of 1917 vintage had exactly the same problems.  Except at that time they had to also contend with Teuton bomber aircraft and Austro-Hungarian artillery.  The Germans and Austrians are staying out of this one.

     One has to admire the optimistic surfer chap in the above picture.  Hope springs eternal and all that.

Finally -

Your Humble Scribe now has the option of having bagels with cream cheese and salmon, having peregrinated <crosses fingers that this word means what he thinks it does> into Lesser Sodom earlier this evening.  Thank you, goodnight and Ambrose Bierce For Prez!

*  You must surely KNOW that we're coming back to this.

**  Stop press.  It's not.