No! That Is Not A Typo
I have not mangled the title of Manfred Mann's big hit of the Seventies 'Blinded By The Light', but since I have mentioned it I can use the album cover it was on. Art!
Purely because I like that cover.
ANYWAY I wanted to mop-up a few separate annotations I'd done from various news feeds, 'Jake Broe' and 'Professor Gerdes Explains' and unfortunately for you they all concern Mordorvia SIT BACK DOWN!
So, Katherine Frich of 'Dagens' penned an item titled 'Putinpot Blinded By Lies As His Military Systematically Misinforms Him'. The analogy she used was of corporate management imposing impossible targets on their workforce and thus being lied to about performance, an analogy that mirrors what's happening inside Ruffia. Art!
Ah yes, the non-existent Ruffian 'conquest' of Lyman, which Putinpot was bloviating about having captured two weeks ago, when in reality it's now well behind Ukrainian lines.
Here an aside. The Kozaky in the map above seem to be across the Zherebets river, which formed the base of the ex-salient, meaning that the defensive line the orcs were counting on has collapsed. Ooops.
ANYWAY AGAIN the almost-certain suspicion is that Ruffian commanders are lying to Charlie Chipmunk Cheeks to conceal their glacial progress in Ukraine. The Institute for the Study of War criticises what it calls the 'pervasive culture of lying within the Ruffian armed forces', which is a natural outcome of wanting to get medals and promotions instead of falling from a window. Art!
Dimya looking a bit stressed
You'd think he'd have a smidgeon of understanding about this, but no: he's probably aware that his generals and ministers are lying to him and chooses to believe that they're little white lies. This is why he boasts about taking the entirety of the Donbas by 2027 - a directive he has applied to his generals for the 15th time recently. You'd think he'd have a smidgeon - ah, whatever.
Thus he thinks he can prevail, when in reality and August the land gained has been minimal and losses enormous - 42,000 in that month alone. MI6 have estimated that the Ruffian death toll so far runs to 500,000, none of which matters one whit to Putler. The spooks also estimate that, at current progress rates, the orcs won't conquer the Donbas until 2032, if Ruffia lasts that long. Art!
This is an old vlog from Jake, from 7/9/26, which I bring up here to show that the Ruffians crossed the splendidly ambitious target of 1.5 million orcs dead or injured - O no, wait, that's not a good thing, is it? - in September. Jake mentions the refineries that the Kozaky had been hitting, and our old friend Ust-Luga is in there. Art!
After the fire
Here I'm going to jump forward to Jake's latest vlog, where he mentions Ust-Luga again. This was in conjunction with the ongoing Ukrainian campaign against orc marine freight in the Sea of Azov and Black Sea. This has entirely stopped the export of grain from southern Ruffia, which is now piling up in gigantic amounts in the southern ports, risking it going mouldy and rotten. So, the orcs are now planning on sending it by road or rail to Ust-Luga in order to export from there. As Jake pointed out, this is going to considerably increase the costs involved; there is so much bulk tonnage of grain that it is only efficient to transport it by ship. You're talking about sending stuff on a 2,000 kilometre journey. Ust is a bust. O and Kazakhstan has banned Ruffian wheat imports, probably because it can and feels like poking the bear a bit. Tee hee! Art?
The picture to port is from Jake's 7th September vlog and shows the quality of water supplied to citizens in 'liberated' Donetsk. To starboard you have current water quality in Siberian Mordorvia itself. Don't worry, the Chinese will improve potability when they take over. Art!
This unappealing bruiser is Maxim Kalashnikov, a prominent Z-patriot who is not remotely sympathetic to Ukraine. He has, on the other hand, been making highly critical comments about the Ruffian way of waging war for months now, without any punishment. In Conrad's opinion this implies he's being protected by some siloviki, who want to get their displeasure at the SMO expressed, without catching it in the neck.
Maxim recounts a long screed of woes, being verrrrry negative, and bewails Putinpot's original justifications 'Who even remembers damn denazification and demilitarisation any more?'. Put on your best SAD FACE, Max. Tee hee!
I think that's enough loose ends tied up. Next!
Spiky On The Outside
Art!
Punk icons Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten, back in the day.
Whilst on a Youtube channel about shooting down Zeppelins, I came across this fascinating Comment:
In
the late 70s/80s my sister lived in housing association flats off Flask Walk in
Hampstead. Her elderly neighbour, Mabel spoke of standing on the external
stairs and watching the zeppelins bomb London. It was amazing to listen, it
must have been beyond terror when they appeared over London. Mabel also spoke
very highly of Sid Viscious and Johny Rotten as lovely lads who used to do
shopping for her and carry it all up the stone stairs for her as they were
neighbours. Genuine London memories.
What an insight.
More Of Dux
Yes, more planes and things associated with them. Art!
This is the Hawker Siddley Harrier, the land version of the Sea Harrier that we've seen already. I managed to not get the nose in, which is the difference between the two models. Art!
The Harrier is one of the verrrry few foreign-made aircraft ever bought by the South Canadians, as they have their own enormous aircraft industry, but the Marine Corps saw what the Harrier could do, fell in love with it and had lots of them.
If you lived in West Germany during the Cold War, you might also see Harriers operating off motorways, having been dispersed from their normal airfield. Doing this was easy-peasy for Harriers*. Art!
A bit out of sequence but I hope you'll forgive me. What you're looking at here is the bomb bay of the Vulcan. Pretty obviously they never dropped any nuclear ordnance or I'd not be here to write these lines nor you to read them. What they did drop were lots of iron bombs on the Argentinian garrison in the Falklands in the Black Buck raids, an experience they did not enjoy one bit.
Being A Bit Pseudy
I haven't put up anything to do with that Bookmark I inducted a while ago, so let's see what they recommend Your Humble Scribe ought to be buying NO NO NOT BUYING GETTING FROM A LIBRARY HONESTLY. Art!
We need a cover illo, Art!
From the blurb, it seems that Ade's central concept was that Rome did, indeed, impose 'Pax'(Latin <hack spit> for 'Peace', for two whole centuries following the reign of Augustus, and that it was not completely expansionist. Just most of the time. Hmmm you know, this does look interesting <wallet squeaks in anguish>. A more nuanced version of history rather than simply 'Empire Is Evil'.
Back To Brucie
Painter Pennington, again again. We are getting through the slideshow put up by 'Sci-Fi Art' on Youtube, even if the whole thing is over 7 minutes long and each slide is only up for a few seconds. Plus I skipped a few of the 'Dune' sequels. Art!
Very sombre, but not giving off the unclean vibes of that painting with the hooks. Conrad notes that Ol' Brucie has gotten more of those - hills? mountains? buildings? - made out of coral in the background and the gas giant informs that no, Vulnavia, we are not on Earth any longer.
Finally -
O what fun, a batty Romanian lady on the line. I have to say, Romanian sounds awfully similar to Italian.
* The Sinisters had a VTOL jet that set fire to aircraft carrier decks and had only 30 minutes flight time. Lightweights.
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