You Might Misapprehend My Meaning
Which is exactly why I said it, so we can waltz all around a variety of different meanings before ending up on the correct one, because that's the way we roll around here. Yes, it's true that the shortest route between two points is a straight line, but it's also the most boring one. Art!
Meet the Ocker's opening batsman for the next One Day International. Yes! the arcane game of cricket involves bails, which are placed on stumps, and the object of the game is to hit the stumps with a ball sufficiently hard for the bails to become airborne. I think. Cricket is hard. Art!
In the case above, the batsman is almost certainly bowled out, thanks to both bails getting knocked off the stumps.
Of course - obviously! - that's not the in which sense we're using the noun, or this Intro would be verrrry short. Art!
No, these are not torture implements as used by medieval interrogators. This is a 'bail', also known as the handle for a bucket, or any semi-circular handle on an appliance such as a kettle. Still not the bail we're after. Art!
Here we see a Bail Bondsman, a.k.a. Fugitive Agent or Security Agent, whose job it is to track down people who post bail as obtained from the Bail Agency, and whom then fail to appear in court. 'Midnight Run' is based on the rivalry between two bail bondsmen trying to deliver a fugitive to justice, for your information.
O what's this? Ah yes, 'Bail: To remove (water) from (a boat).' Now we're getting somewhere. Art!
What I intend to reference here is the metaphorical act of bailing out, as applied to an entity that is in severe financial trouble. Because we are once again going to look at Modern-day Mordor, which is suffering from all the ills that fiscals are heir to. Just as I will regret the passing of the Orange Land Whale, so too will I miss Mordorvia, as it generates so much content so reliably. Thanks to JasonJ. Smart and Beefeater on Youtube and Twitter for details of this item.
So! Ruffian statistics, not the guesstimates from MI6 or the CIA, are what bring the pain. Art!
Meet Sredneuralsk, an outlying region of Yekaterinburg. What's significant about a minor provincial city? O I thought you'd never ask!
Because the governor of the Sverdlovsk region has declared the city bankrupt. It has no money left in it's budget and is insolvent, unable to pay for public works carried out in the previous quarter. Outside management is going to be imposed to try and manage the city, which they cannot do without -
A bail out. Now do you see the hideous cunning that goes into creating a headline? Art!
The Sverdlov oblast.
This arrangement matches up with the Google AI's interpretation of what would happen to any Ruffian oblast that runs out of money. To wit:
"If a Russian region faced severe financial distress and could no longer meet its obligations, the federal government in Moscow would likely intervene with financial aid and direct control, rather than allowing a formal "bankruptcy" process"
Sredneuralk's situation is, worryingly for the financial minions in Barad-Dur, not unique. As of September 1st, or over two months ago, several regions were reporting less than 1% of their budget left, meaning <drum roll trumpet blast> they needed a bail out from Moscow's coffers to cover the remaining 4 months of the fiscal year. Art!
The entire oblast of Kalmukia, as of 01/09/2025*, had 0.1% of it's operating budget left, or in practical terms, nothing per cent.. Thus a bail out is needed. JJS didn't quote the oblast's budget, so I would guess that, since it's smaller and less important than Volgograd, perhaps $1 billion annually?
You might expect Moscow to lack interest in a remote and unimportant province, but the malaise is also hitting closer to home. Volgograd oblast, as seen on the map above, had an annual budget for 2025 of $2.4 billion. At calendar date 01/09/2025* it had $1.2 million in the oblast bank, or 1/2000th of their budget left. In addition to corrupt official embezzling from their regional budget, which Moscow probably allows for, they've had repeated drone strikes on verrry expensive refinery equipment in their oblast. Art!
Oh my. That looks expensive.
Typically, the jolly unsporting Ukrainians wait until the Volgograd refinery is patched up again and ready to start working, then drone it to Peklo**. All of which drains the coffers, and whilst the refinery is off-line, it's not making any money, a kind of two-fer. Again, with feeling, a bail out is needed! Art?
Then there's Belgorod oblast, which has been a bit of an excrement magnet given that it shares a border with Ukraine. Art!
Again, for calendar date 01/09/2025, it had $1.5 million left from it's original $2.3 billion annual budget. Not only did it have to contend with the usual skimming by official regional government embezzlers, it's also had to contend with a lot of Ukrainian drone and missile strikes on refineries and electrical sub-stations, unlike Ruffian regions further afield. They've also had to fund the construction of air-raid shelters as the drone strikes are so frequent, which the locals, being Ruffians, treat as public toilets. Again those magic words, a bail out is needed!
The overarching problem there is that Moscow is running short of federal funds itself, for reasons we've gone into over the past few months. The Kremlin definitely isn't going to waste money propping up the provinces when it has to keep the citizens of Barad-Dur sweet. Or at least not too salty. Art!
Or this will happen
Deja Vu Three
This is becoming a regular feature, for good or ill. As you ought to be aware, 'Tank Encyclopaedia' has been putting up differing items to do with tanks, BUT they keep using the SAME STUPID INAPPROPRIATE FILM CLIP <ahem ahem allows blood pressure to fall>. Art!
Conrad is guessing that this was set up as a macro and subsequent lazy contributors have just copied it and filled in a different title, because this is an ongoing phenomenon and we will be coming back to it again, believe me. I bet you can hardly wait.
O Look Who's Changed Their Mind!
'Moscow' Mike Johnson, Speaker of the South Canadian Senate, has finally given up stalling and sworn in Adelita Grijalva as a lawmaker. This means that there is now a quorum of members in the House who want the Epstein Files released. The Flabby Fraudster now seems to have given up lying about them and dubbing them a 'Hoax'. Art!
A Little Detective Work
Conrad mentioned earlier this week about a Youtube channel, which dealt with industrial machinery that variously shredded, stripped or crushed waste metals of timbers. We shall skip the first clip they put up as it's orcs shredding things and they get enough daily exposure of that already. So, onto the second clip - Art!
This, I discovered, is a Moros 630T Semi-Mobile Electric Shear, property of Recycling Support RSN.
An industrial shear's job is to cut sheet metals or scrap to size. That's it. Just don't get your hand in the way.
Think Pink
Another entry from 'The Museum Of Failures' and this one concerns toy trains. Not just any miniature trains, but trains for GIRLS. For girls because the trains were painted in muted pastel colours such as - pink. Art!
Lionel Corporation go off the rails
The freight carried wasn't coal or pig iron, it was - er - furniture.
Female train collectors stayed away in droves and a lot of the stock was recalled to be re-painted in somewhat more realistic colours.
Gosh. Whatever will they think of next!
Ah yes. I had to ask.
That's all folks!
* SENSIBLE BRITISH NOTATION
** Ukranian for 'Hell'
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