ATLAS Poor Yorick

No!  That Is Not A Typo!

Because Conrad DOES NOT MAKE TYPOS.  For one thing, I have a sound grasp of English grammar and spelling, and also a spellchecker, even if it is a dodgy American English version of a proper one.  Nor can one customise it, so it still picks up 'Yesteryon' as being incorrect, when in f

     ANYWAY I will admit I've resorted to the Barf Of Avon and that line from "Hammerlet" or similar.  Art!

     Say hello to one of the enormous professional optical telescopes that NASA uses to - borrowing a phrase from UNIT - Protect The Planet.  Yes, it's an optical telescope.  No, it doesn't double as a Laser Battle-Station, we're not talking about that kind of protection.  Art!

Skulldling

     Back to Yozz.  What is the salient thing you notice about him in the above photo?  I hope you chose "Dead" as the response, because he most certainly is.  Long dead, too, by the looks of him.  Not having ever seen 'Hammerlet' and with no intention of ever doing so - I may allow Shakespeare to continue to be inflicted upon people when I take over as there is a strong streak of sadist running through me - I cannot fathom why Hammerlet is stooging around a graveyard, nor how, exactly, he got his hands on Yorick's skull.  The family mi

     ANYWAY the thing about Yorick is that he is deader than Jeffrey Jones' career.  Being expired before your expiry date is not a fate I presume any of us want.

     Enter NASA's project ATLAS, where they have rather strained the full version to come up with an acronym: Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System.  Art!

     "Near Earth Objects" ought to clue you in about this initiative.  It's a network of very large optical telescopes that ceaselessly scour the skies for NEOs, because these objects have none of the grace and sheer niceness of Keanu Reeves.  The danger is when they move from being 'Near' to 'Upon' since anything hitting from orbit is going to be moving at quite a clip (sorry for this astronomical jargon).

     Obviously the bigger the object the more damage it will cause when and where it impacts, though the corollary of that is that the bigger the object the easier it is to spot.

     Time is the most critical element here.  With sufficient advance warning threatened areas can be evacuated, shelters prepared, food and water stocked, or if sufficient lead time exists, a robot probe can be sent to nudge the NEO off-course.  Art!

     This is 2024 PT5, which the ATLAS network discovered only recently in 2024.  You won't be able to see it transit the heavens, as it is only 36 feet wide and is non-reflective.  The ATLAS network detected it and tracked it's trajectory, which will be slightly modified by Earth's gravity, but only slightly.  Nor will it get closer than 500,000 miles.

     You can see where Yozzy comes in here, can't you?  With ALTAS being vigilant watching the heavens, there's a lot less chance we go the same way as Hammerlet's mate.  Art!

     Also, fear not, because I've run the numbers on 2024 PT5, just in case.  Because it's so small, it will break up miles above this planet's surface, and there may be craters as small as that above caused by falling fragments.  A bad hair day if they fall on you, but everyone and everything else will be fine.

A Reminder

In our jaunt across the world of Judge Dredd in the 22nd century, I neglected to add a note that the map-creators placed at the top of the page.  Art!

     This reminds me of a commentary made on a map of Middle Earth, where one question posed was 'Why isn't there more trade across Middle Earth?' and the sober answer was that ME was a dangerous place to go travelling in.  Just so is the Earth of JD, with bands of mutants and refugee criminals standing in for orcs.

UK It

As you may be aware, Disney, via it's Lucasfilm operation, recently released "The Acolyte" on it's streaming platform, and it was roundly condemned as being steaming, not streaming.  Conrad is going to take other people's word for this as he has too many demands on his time to bother with flaming dumpster-fire televisual garbage. Ryan Kinel, of the Youtube blog 'Ryan Kinel Outpost', was positively gleeful at lathering invective upon the series, all the more so as it's losses are big enough to merit a second season being cancelled.  Art!

     RK is a hoot to watch as he's always furiously kinetic and rarely posts a vlog more than 5 minutes long.  This one looks at how TA was an even bigger loser than people realised, putting a financial stake right through it's heart.

     You see, TA was shot partly in Wales.  Wales, being part of the UK, means that studios can get tax breaks when filming here.  Conversely, it also means that they have to (eventually) post publicly-available tax records about their budgets and expenses.  Ooopsie.  Art!

Les Squareheadland, the director

     I believe LS is on record as saying that TA cost "One hundred and eighty million", which is her being coy.  Those tax documents that Ryan is displaying are the UK budget details, where the film did indeed cost 180 million, except in British Pounds Sterling.

     Thus actual expenditure comes to $230 million.  Ooopsie.  A stake made out of silver?  That's $28,750,000 per episode.  Or, if you will, $69,690 dollars per minute.

     Filming in the UK: a double-edged sword.

"The War Illustrated Edition 195 December 8th 1944"

It had been a horribly wet autumn in Europe, which made all the conflict and destruction going on even less pleasant than usual.  Art!

    In the top photo you can see British Royal Navy matelots parading along the Champs Elysées, as part of a parade mounted in Pars on Armistice Day (11th November).  At bottom you can see Winnie - he didn't mind the nickname - and General De Gaulle having a stroll, with Deggy probably thinking dark thoughts about not being the centre of attention, as he was like that.  Art!

     Whilst the Guards Armoured Division was battling on through France and the Low Countries, they still had regiments serving as footsloggers, and here you see Grenadier Guards in the Italian Apennine mountains, where the land looks waterlogged  and muddy.  Just what you don't want to encounter as a foot patrol.  Note the use of walking sticks for steep terrain.


O Delicious Schadenfreude!

Conrad is not fond of that odious sack of excrement in human shape going by the appellation 'Alex Jones', who lost both cases brought against him for defamation.  To the tune of $1 billion.  He has, of course - obviously!- wriggled like a worm on a hook to try and keep that money in his hot, sweaty hands and avoid relinquishing it.

     Well, the time has come to pay the piper.  Art!

     It's a bit early for 'Ho Ho Ho!' but I don't care.  Also <points and laughs>.  I hope he ends up living in a cardboard box under a bridge.  With rats*.

Finally -

It's Degsy's birthday on Sunday, but it's being officially moved to Friday in order that Darling Daughter and Quiet Tom come to visit also, so I have laid in a carton of alcohol-free beer, because one of them is going to have to drive.

     Chin chin!

*  Doubtless the ASPCA will be on the case with all speed.

A Dismal Demographic

And Colourful Cartographic

We need not bother with the lonnnnng preamble of yesteryon's Intro, because I'm going to head into this one with the bold assumption that you recall what I'm gabbling on about.  Which is that map of Judge Dredd's world as of the 22nd Century, where, it is fair to say, Hom. Sap. have not been treating Mother Nature with the care she deserves.  Art!

Hershey proves she's not made out of chocolate

     To be fair, they did have other, more immediate concerns than the EPA.  A little background is in order here.  You see, thanks to various supernatural shenanigans, the Big Meg had a rather large body count during the events of 'Necropolis', which I'm not going to detail or we'd be here till the weekend.  I believe the total number of dead was 60 million, who were buried in giant pits out in the Cursed Earth.  

     Then along comes the rapscallion Sabbat, who is of questionable morals and intent.  He reanimates all the dead across the planet, leading to the story called "Judgement Day", in order to take over Planet Earth.  Whatever happened to getting along with people and co-operation, hmmm?  This is where our other map comes in.  Art!

     The global death toll for JD is three billion people, which is rather a lot.  Conrad's unsure if the creators ever give a total for the pre-JD world population, which is likely to be less than our current world thanks to the environmental restrictions you can see above.  Five mega-cities are deliberately nuked by the surviving mega-cities in attempts to keep the zombie hordes at bay; yesterday's map detailed Mega-City Two, Brasilia and South-Am City, and above you can see Djakarta and Sino-City One were also victims of this gambit.  Ooopsie.  Art!

     If you have sharp eyes and equally sharp wits, you'll have noticed that East-Meg One is now a giant glass crater - but it's not a victim of Judgement Day.  This fate goes back to the brief Apocalypse War, when EM1 made a big for global domination, first by nuking half of the Big Meg into radioactive vapour, then by invading.  They were hoist by their own petard when a suicide squad led by Ol' Stony Face launched one of their own Total Annihilation Devices at them, from inside their own defensive shield.  Ooopsie.

     You ought to have noticed that the British Isles have survived, partially intact, into the 22nd Century, possibly because of prevailing offshore winds, although the writers wanting to set specific stories in the three different environments is more likely.  Art!

     Although plagued by all the ills of a modern mega-city, Brit Cit judges are not armed as their South Canadian counterparts, because - I mean, that just wouldn't be British, would it?  Plus, if you want a little local colour and to mock stereotypes, simply wheel in a story from Cal Hab - what remains of inhabitable Caledonia - or Emerald City - what remains of habitable Hibernia and nothing to do with Oz - and satirise away.

     Conrad would like to point out that all those green areas are not verdant pasturelands; they are radioactive wastelands, and the green is that of glowing fallout-contaminated land.  There aren't any readily available depictions of these areas unless one goes into individual comics, so this will have to stand.  Art!

     This is the South Canadian 'Cursed Earth' radlands, which stretches from the west to the east coast, and they can stand in for other such places.  The red-shaded areas are, according to the legend on yesteryon's map, positively hotching with mutagenic agents and are to be avoided at all costs lest you want your offspring to have three heads and tentacles.  Up to the point where I stopped reading '2000AD' there hadn't been any stories set in these areas, so if you an imagination and Word, you could try selling a story to Revolution publications.  Art!

Hondo Cit Judge

     Apart from this pretty spiffy artwork (artist unknown at present) that's it for this map chat, chaps.

Conrad The Curious Culinarist

If that's not already a word, I want royalties when it gets into the next edition of "Collins Concise Dictionary'.  Okay, I was reading one of <deep breath> 'War Witch Will Hold This Territory' on Twitter <suffer ignominously Elong Tusk!> when she mentioned 'tomato pie'.

     SSSCCCCCRRRRCCCHHHHHH

     You what?  Conrad had never heard of it before.

     Turns out it's a recipe from the south of South Canada.  A savoury pie, with the tomato filling held together with mayonnaise and cheese.  

     I have found a recipe, will be making notes and tonight is the Weekly Shop.  I will let you know.

Man Of Stele

No!  That is not a spelling mistake, although it is a bit punny, following on from our "Man Of Steal" title of yesteryon.  No, 'Stele' is a proper word, and it just happened to float up to the top of my mind this morning, apropos of nothing in particular.  Just the way a mind works, I suppose.  Art!

     Let me guess, this word has Greek roots?  I shall consult the CCD.  "An upright stone slab or column, decorated with figures or inscriptions, common in prehistoric times."

     And yes, it is from the Greek, 'Stele'.  No information as to what the Greek word means.  "A big stone"?

I Am Currently Working On A Thing

Because only South Canadians would use the pretentious word 'Project', although you could argue this Thing is about 'Projecting', in the strategic military sense of the word.  You see, a few Ruffian bottomholes have been ranting on television, when they ought to be home in bed, trying to sober up.  Art!

     This quarter-wit is Gurulyov, whose face seems to be sliding off his skull.  Take that phrase appearing on-screen: "Americans are now very concerned that the Ruffians are going to attack Alaska."

     Well, you know Conrad, ever up to carry out a ridiculously detailed examination of the ridiculous, and I am currently at the note-making stage on dealing with this asinine assertion.  There may be a bit of history involved.  For reference's sake, let me prod Art into semi-consciousness after his bowls of coals -

Alaska the biggest South Canadian state

 

Behold!  A New Friend!

Conrad continues to plough his lonely furrow, promulgating the truth that sharks are our friends.  Probably not good as domestic pets, mind.  Art!

     Say hello to a newly-discovered species of 'Ghost Shark', so-named because they lurk in the abyssal deeps of the ocean and are thus stumbled across only very rarely.  This one has been christened the "Australian Narrow-Nosed Spookfish" because - you may be ahead of me here - of it's very long, thin nose.  They inhabit the briny deeps at a depth of over one and a half miles, which you'll agree makes it unlikely to scoop one up in a shrimping net when you go out all marine-biologing.  Would make a nice background element when they finally produce "The Kraken Wakes" as a miniseries.

More Obsessive Detailing

Your Humble Scribe is still sorting out counters from "The Great War In Europe" and is now dealing with the Teuton counters, and O my there are a lot of 'em.  Art!

Before

An hour later .....

     It did give me the chance to listen to another of 'Anders Puck Nielsen''s excellent and succint vlogs on how the Special Idiotic Operation is going.  Swings and roundabouts.

Finally -

For some reason there was a lot of chatter on Twitter about sausages yesteryon.  I personally have 4 Posh Dogs in the fridge waiting to go, in case you want to know about the Sekrit Layr's Sausage Situation.

Chaps With Maps

Conrad Is Unaware If It's Just Him

Or if it's a male thing, or does the whole world not enjoy a well-crafted bit of cartography?  Art!

     Excuse me whilst I Tazer a bit of common sense into our resident Neanderthal artistic department.  Don't worry, it's non-lethal.  Mostly.

     ANYWAY back to maps.  Conrad has enjoyed having a thorough peruse of maps since he was a lot smaller and cuter, possibly because they convey an air of authority and gravitas to even the most banal narrative.  One of the better examples was in the hardback trilogy version of "Lord Of The Rings", where the maps came as large-scale folding versions, not merely printed on a page.  Art!

A sight to gladden the heart

     Adding an item like that must have jacked up the price per unit.

     There's also an interesting comparative map I've seen, where Middle Earth is overlaid on contemporary South Canada, and I bet I can't find it now it's needed.  Art!

     Well, Europe stands in pretty well instead.  This gives you a sense of scale for Middle Earth, which is handy as it doesn't exist in real life, much to the dismay of many people.  Yours Truly not included, I like plumbed toilets and electric power, which Ol' Tolky probably viewed with a jaundiced eye.  Art!

     This, I believe, is from one of my Official Histories, and shows the British 38th and 12th Division's advance in 'August', without giving a year.  This is on the Western Front, as I recognise the town of Albert, but there's no date or battle nomenclature on the map itself, which is a bit remiss.  Art!

This is a British trench map of 'Hebuterne' and localities, copies of which were printed off and updated in tremendous numbers.  The red lines - CAREFUL PUTINPOT - are the Teuton trenches, rendered in considerable detail, whereas the single dotted green line is that of the British trenches, because should this map fall into enemy hands, you don't want to gift them information.  Art!

     

     Yes, this is a map from "The War Illustrated" at the opposite end of scale as opposed to that of Hebuterne.  It has to be, it's showing seven separate Allied armies poised to attack the Teutons in their homeland.

     All of this is a mere preamble to the meat of the matter, that being a gatefold map from the centre pages of "Judge Dredd The Megazine", which if Art - O stop complaining and put a bit of salve on them -

Well well well, a gazetteer of Judge Dredd's world.  I think I'll work my way down from the top, pontificating along the way.  

URANIUM CITY: Established in what used to be Alaska, UC is separated from other bits of civilised civic society by the rad-lands left over from the atomic wars of the prior century.  The city was established and exists to mine uranium, a commodity much in demand in the 22nd century.  Art!

     Being a mining town it's a little rough around the edges.  Okay, okay, very rough around the edges, and so would you be if your environment was an arctic wasteland.

MEGA-CITY ONE:  The Big Meg.  Original mega-city, and like a resoundingly robust wrist-watch, it can take a licking yet keep on ticking.  It has survived the Apocalypse War, the Dark Judges, Judgement Day and Chaos Day.  One of the most violent, crime-ridden cities on the planet, which makes for cracking entertainment.  Art!

TEXAS CITY: Or, you might say, the pretender to the crown.  Long envious of the power and prestige of the Big Meg, the Texans are not altogether to be trusted when it comes to filial love and compassion, as they would dearly like to be top dog and wield the resources MC1 has.  Art!

     Their attitude to guns is Not-Quite Compulsory - so far.  Give it time.

MEGA-CITY TWO: The Big Meg's West Coast rival.  It, too, had survived torrid trials and torments, but Judgement Day saw the city over-run by the zombie hordes of Sabbat.  Whereupon the other surviving mega-cities nuked it into a giant glass crater.  Once again filial love and compassion a tad lacking.

     BRASILIA and SOUTH-AM CONURB both got similar treatment.

CIUDAD BARANQUILLA: The legendarily corrupt mega-city where anything goes as long as you have enough bribe money for the Judges.  Coups and purges and insurrection are normal everyday events here.  Every so often the Big Meg stamps out the corruption but the rot runs deep.  Art!

     I think that's enough carting for one evening.  Don't worry, we shall return.

From Bridezilla To Bridekilla

If the concept of 'Bridezilla' is new to you, just imagine a woman positively oozing with self-entitlement, self-absorption, malicious narcissism and greed, all festering for their entire life up until the wedding day.  I'm sure the male equivalent also exists, I've just not seen any examples of it.  Yes.  Give it time.  Art!

You'll find out why

     One Commenter posted a pithy little tale about his cousin's fiancée (hereafter CF) and the cousin's elder sister (hereafter CES).

     CES was not a woman who tolerated fools or churls lightly, and had withdrawn from the wedding party because of being slighted.  CF, who didn't like being told 'No', determined to attend a family dinner SHARP CUTLERY WARNING and persuade CES to re-join the party.

     The Quoran narrator didn't render any dialogue, but I think the phrases 'NO!', "HELL NO!' and 'F****** HELL NO!' cropped up when CF tried to exert her diplomatic charms.  Oooopsie.  Art!

     CF grabbed a knife and stabbed CES 14 times before she was disarmed.  She got a plea deal of fifteen to twenty years, instead of the twenty-five to life a trial would have guaranteed.

     The wedding was cancelled, just to be clear.

A Sign Of Despair

Ruffia's road map to Hades continues to throw up new street furniture, this time involving that dreadful old clunker the 'Admiral Kuznetsov', which we have pointed at and laughed at in the past.  Art!

     This broken-down garbage scow has been sat, rusting, in port for years because the Ruffians don't have the money, equipment or technical ability to repair it.  Putinpot will refuse to scrap it because that would make him look weak, balding and 73 - ooops, he already is.  O well.  Art!

     Supposedly there were 1,500 crew for this junk jalopy, whom are now going to be sent to Ukraine to become sunflower fodder.  The Ruffian Admiralty seem to have implicitly admitted that the AK is never going to sea again, which the sea will be pretty grateful for, since the AK burns the most disgustingly polluting fuel imaginable: Mazut.  Which is one reason you can see it over the horizon.

A Sign Of Dement

Conrad is used to the traffic figures as reported by Blogger occasionally going bonkers for a month and then re-setting to Normal.  If you recall, the traffic for August was ridiculously high, getting to a total of over 15,000.  Which is flattering but surely not credible?  Anyway - Art!

     What on earth is going on here?  Art!

  

     BOOJUM! beloved in Bengal.

Finally -

Just to inform you that I'm now up to page 540 of Longerich's "Heinrich Himmler", which I have successfully tackled by treating as homework and reading 20 pages per night.

     We're now up to the background for Operation Barbarossa, where Heinie is busily trying to increase the size of the Waffen SS, and keep it independent of the Wehrmacht, so he gets to create and keep his own pocket army.  Interestingly, he was throwing the recruitment net across the Teuton encalves in Eastern Europe, and was quite prepared to take on recruits from 'Nordic' countries, but the one people he didn't want anything to do with were the 'Anglo-Saxons'.

     Go us!

Man Of Steal

I'm Making This Up As I Go Along

As I frequently do.  I have a vague central concept for the Intro, and half a page of scribbled lines, and we'll see how far Conrad can get before reality catches up with him.

     Okay!  First of all, NO! that is not a typo.  I am referring to Xi Jin Ping, dictator-in-chief of The Populous Dictatorship, also known cruelly to his critics as 'Winnie The Pooh' because of his rotund shape.  Stick a pin in this, we shall return to it.  Art!

People can be so cruel.  And accurate.

     Now, you may recall the Red Tsar, Josef Stalin, who would quite happily send a million people to their deaths if it meant a single guilty party also copped it.  He was born Ioseb Dzhugashvili, a Georgian name if ever there was one, and apparently didn't think it was hard enough, so he adopted the pseudonym 'Stalin', meaning 'Man of Steel' and he did it in 1912 - Art!  

     A well-deserved name as he had all the humanity of an ingot.

     There was, subsequently, another 'Man Of Steel', whose moral compass caused him to be diametrically opposed to any 'Man Of Steal', and because he was bulletproof, brawny and browsed on braised bacon flew, people paid attention to him.  Art!

     I'm sure you must be wondering which came first, the Archaeopteryx or the egg, so bear in mind that Supes didn't hit the news-stands until 1938, so Ol' Joey had 26 years on him.  

    Here an aside.  There was also 'Iron Man', whom I don't think hit the news-stands until the Fifties, as Tony Stark's alter-ego.  Iron, to be honest, is not the best metal for armour, as it's heavy and brittle and if Tony goes punching people in the patella, he may very well find himself reduced to wearing a pile of iron filings.  However - my very favouritest word - calling him "Steel Man" might lead to copyright issues, since he's a Marvel creation and Supes hails from DC.  Art!

     Personally I think the correct word is 'Created', because human anatomy.  "Titanium Man" would also be unacceptable, thanks to comic dialogue frequently shortening long names into short, punchy nicknames.  "Aluminium Man" is also a non-starter due to that same trend with names.  I mean - Art!

     How very embarrassing.  

     ANYWAY let us now revert back to Winnie The Pooh and how China is not Ruffia's friend, not one bit.  Yesteryon I did tell you about the ever-escalating problems Ruffia is having with Chinese trade, because the Chinese can easily dump all their trade with Ruffia and barely notice it, whereas Ruffia desperately needs Winnie's agreement to trade in order to survive, let alone prosper.  Art!

     Welcome to the wonderful world of galvanised steel.  GS is steel that's been treated with a coating of zinc carbonate, in order to improve it's resistance to weather, erosion and rusting.  There are innumerable uses for GS, including construction, street furniture, catering equipment, plant machinery and one manufacturer also added outdoor planters.

     Versatile stuff.  It also used to be a major export market for Ruffia, and note the past tense there.  You see, China has now stepped in and poached 70% of Modern-day Mordor's GS markets in Europe and Asia; stolen their trade, you might say, which is where our title for today hails.  This is not only a humiliation for Putin, it directly affects revenues and taxes in a major way, just when the hapless orcs need all the money they can get.  They are now imposing tariffs on Chinese GS to try and defend what market share they have.  Ooopsie.

"I knew that broken-glass sandwich was a bad idea"

"The War Illustrated Edition 195 8th December 1944"

Don't forget, gentle reader, that this edition is reporting the news from mid- to late-November, thanks to how the print media functioned at that time and because they didn't want to give the wily Hun any viable information.  Art!

     If you can't render that prose, allow me to inform that this sturdy matelot is one of those steering into the teeth of Teuton fire as the Allies - principally Brits and Canadians - assaulted the island of Walcheren.  Art!

     As you can clearly see, Walcheren functioned like the stopper in a bottle.  While it was being held by the Teutons, the port of Antwerp could not be used, a bit of a sickener for the Allies as it was such an enormous port that could effortlessly handle huge amounts of supplies.  Said supplies were still being sent all the way from Normandy.

     So - Walcheren must fall!

A Couple Of Malicious Metrics For You

Things are getting pretty bad in the Ruffian economy - which is not news.  However - that word again! - the ruble is being allowed to slide and keeps depreciating in a manner that suggests the Ruffian Ministry of Finance has been told not to try and prop it up.  Their money needs to be directed elsewhere, because 8% of the Ruffian federal budget is being spent on the salaries of orcs in Ukraine.  Art!

     So, overall it's slid by ₽1.50 in the past month.

     Another interesting tangent is that, were Conrad to wish to use the dollar $ or pound £ symbol in an item, there they are on the keyboard.  For the ruble ₽ I have to go into the Symbols menu, then track down more Symbols, and then look up Currency.  It's just not in demand.  Art!

     Also not in demand.  Okay, bear in mind that I'm typing this at 18:17, and over in South Canada it's 13:17 on the stock exchanges, so there are still a good few hours to go before Monday's final trading figure is reached.  It's not looking good for Donold, who is being forced to flog over-priced tat to keep up with the Jones.  Art!

     You can have this coin, worth $30 (O! the ease with which I placed that dollar sign!) for $100.  One wonders how many of these Snake Oil Willie can flog before he ends up in prison and their value declines to $3.

Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before -

Another Ruffian ammunition Ooopsie.  Thanks to 'Suchomimus' for bringing this to my attention as it's a little hard to keep track of all the Ruffian kit going BANG at the moment.

     This is another, intermediate level, ammunition depot in the Tver oblast, smaller than Toropets.  Let's have a 'Before', shall we?  Art!

     What's absent from this site is the presence of any hardened - excuse me - supposedly hardened bunkers, this is all warehouses and open storage stands.  Art!

     The icon says "Radio Svoboda" - "Radio Freedom".  As you can clearly see, the site now closely resembles the surface of the Moon.  Give it a day or two and we'll have estimates of how much ordnance was destroyed here, to go with the (upper bound) 40,000 tons already smitten in September.

    Ukraine is keeping pretty quiet about what kind of drone did this damage, and how many there were, which leads the suspicious-minded of us to wonder if it's not the 'Palanitsia' turbo-jet drone in action.

     Imagine being the hapless minion being sent to Putin to inform him about this, for the third time in a weekend!

Finally -

That's all, pilgrims.  Ta ta!