Paraparaphrasing

 Once Again -

If that gets into the next edition of 'Collins Concise English Dictionary' then I want royalties.  Art

'Spiteful meteor'

     Because the images for 'paraphrasing' were utterly dull.  

     ANYWAY I was right, the un-named Track 06 is by Weather Report, I Shazamed it to f

     ANYWAY ANYWAY let me define 'paraphrase'.  "An expression of a statement or text in other words, especially in order to clarify."  It arrived in English via Old French via Latin via the Greek 'paraphrazein', meaning 'to recount'.  You see, for this Intro I am going to be typing up my annotations of Youtuber 'William Spaniel', whom was annotating an article from the 'New York Times' that I looked for but cannot find.  Probably behind a paywall anyway.  Art!

     Gosh.  Hard to believe that was 57 years ago and I watched it live on television.

     ANYWAY AGAIN, I occasionally watch Ol' Bills vlogs, and the title for this one caught my eye: "Why Ruffia Struggles To Repair It's Refineries", so I've annotated it as the background it reveals is interesting, even if the title is a bit of a misnomer.  I'm also going to nick a phrase Ol' Bill came out with - 'The fracas in Caracas'.  Now, on with the list he compiled.

1)  Who Is The Biggest Ukrainian Advocate In The White House

As a misdirection, Ol' Bill mentions the Special Envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellog.  As a serving officer he once visited the Ruffian embassy in an official capacity during 2000.  He then developed a staphylococcus infection that nearly cost him his arm, and he suspected he'd been deliberately infected.  Boy he does not like Ruffia!  Art?

     Lo!  No, that's not Keithy Breakfast Cereal.  That, gentle reader, is John Ratcliffe, head of the CIA and a man who resolutely keeps out of the headlines.  Under him the CIA has actually increased it's aid to Ukraine rather than cutting it.  One reason for this is that Ratcliffe is a keen golfer, and his partner on many a green has been Donold Judas Trump himself, whom Ratcliffe can influence away from evil imps like Stephen Miller.

2) The Secret Refinery Trick

Further to the above, the CIA provides Ukraine with intelligence on Ruffian air defences, showing where there are either gaps or enhanced coverage and allowing drone swarms to avoid or penetrate airspace.  This is probably less crucial now that Ukraine regularly launches multiple strikes per night, Ruffian air defence now being as effective as saucepans.  Art!

$100 million of radar up the spout

     The NYT reports that the CIA is now co-ordinating targets, implying that they now influence the targeting process in an attempt to maximise effectiveness.  The article also claimed that Ukraine was only hitting oil storage depots, until 'an oil industry expert in the CIA' recommended they hit the Crude Distillation Units in orcish oil refineries, because they are hard to replace.

     Conrad rather suspects that the Ukrainians had to build up their drone forces in type and at scale before they could hit refineries in the first place.
     More CIA oil industry experts assessed that Ukraine is inflicting $75 million in damage on the orcish refineries PER DAY, totalling $27 billion over a year.  That ain't hay.

3) A Rich Target Environment

A bit speculative, this one.  The NYT suspected that the CIA was providing Ukraine with real-time intelligence about Ruffian shadow fleet tankers, enabling them to be struck.  They may have enabled the Ukranians to move marine and aerial drones into the Mediterranean.

4) Pete 'Braindeath' Hegseth

You remember, the drunken bafune who invited a journalist to sit in on a secret briefing session.  Unlike other Trump cabinet appointees, who bothered to liaise with their Biden admin opposite numbers, Heggy didn't.  The daily briefings given to Lloyd Austin, Biden's SedDef, became 5 sentences per week for Heggy, who had a busy drinking schedule to maintain.  The South Canadian Supreme Allied Commander Europe, hereafter SACEUR, General Cavoli, is very pro-Ukraine, whilst we know Pete likes to generously volunteer other people's countries to Ruffia, and drink.  Sadly for Pete, if he fires Cavoli then the Deputy SACEUR takes over.  This would be Admiral Keith Blunt, a British (because there's also the Royal Danish Navy) Royal Navy officer, and the Brits are uniformly pro-Ukrainian.  Poor Pete.  Go drown your sorrows.  Art!

I guarantee the Ruffians have Kompromat on him

     Word is that Trump has long been fed up with Heggy but doesn't want to have to fire him, as that would look bad.  Well, your choice, Piggy.

     I hope you like this paraparaphrasing because it looks like we're going to be all about this for the whole blog.  Let us continue.  I bet you can hardly wait.

4)  White House Power Struggles

Rather than decisions in the WH being made out of malice, spite, evil or incompetence, the NYT article rather holds that outcomes are often the result of different factions fighting each other.  One example was that of Steve 'Witless' Witkoff trying to negotiate a peace deal with Putinpot, completely side-lining Marco Rubio.  You know, the man who looks utterly miserable at every press conference as he realises he sold his sole for sixty pieces of gold.

     These conflicts between different special interest groups can get so bad that WH officials only learn of what has happened as regards Ukrainian policy when the Ukrainians update them.  

"I had a nightmare that I was in the Trump admin.  Then I woke up and I was."

5)  The Oval Office Meltdown

This was the deliberate showdown where Fat Caligula and Vance The Carnal Couch Copulator ganged up on Zelensky.  Donold was especially angry that Prez Zed didn't pander and flatter him, as is expected when he graces a person with his zeppelin-ego presence.  Art!

   The Senile Sepia Sackbut didn't know what he was talking about, because shortly after this charade the Ukrainians destroyed a third of the Ruffian strategic bomber fleet in 'Operation Spiderweb'.  Prez Zed must have been fuming inside. knowing what he knew.

     ANYWAY ANYHOW Trump wanted to continue with the scheduled lunch, putting the verbal ambush behind him, because BOOH loves loves loves his food, as you can tell looking at his waistline.  However - that word at last! - National Security Adviser Mike Walz took umbrage with the Ukrainians lack of boot-licking and demanded they be sent packing.  Which is what happened.  A very rare example of Trump being conciliatory but his staff spoiling it.

6) A Line In The Steppe

At a meeting in March 2025, that same aforementioned Mike Waltz handed a pen and map of Ukraine and asked Umerov, the Ukrainian National Security and Defence head, to draw a line showing what territory Ukraine was willing to surrender.  Art!

     Umerov, an Uzbek by birth, drew a line mostly along the line of contact, with two exceptions; the Dnipro nuclear power plant - that little arc on the map - and a 90º turn at the Kinburn Spit, keeping the orcs away from the port of Mikolaiev.  Whether the Ukrainian position has hardened or gotten any more flexible in the past 10 months remains to be seen, but that was what they were willing to concede in 2025.

Finally -

A quote from my "QI Book Of Banter" for you, from Louisa May Alcott:

"Money is the root of all evil, and yet it is such a useful root that we cannot get on without it any more than we can without potatoes."

     Amen, Out.