Who do you think you are kidding, Mrs Merkel?

From the BBC:

Mr Zelensky [Ukraine's president] opposes the pipeline, which he says threatens Ukraine's security. It will run under the Baltic Sea and double Russian gas exports to Germany...

Mrs Merkel, who is standing down as Germany's chancellor this autumn after 16 years in office, said Berlin agreed with Washington that Nord Stream 2 should not be used against Ukraine. She said sanctions could be used against Moscow under an agreement between Germany and the US, if gas was "used as a weapon".

Mr Zelensky said he was concerned about what would happen in three years when the contract to deliver Russian gas through Ukrainian pipelines runs out. The loss of billions of dollars in transit fees would hit Ukraine's economy hard. Mrs Merkel, who held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, promised to provide more than a billion dollars to help expand Ukraine's renewable energy sector.

Russia already supplies about 40% of the EU's gas - just ahead of Norway, which is not in the EU but takes part in its single market. The new pipeline will increase the amount of gas going under the Baltic to 55 billion cubic metres per year.

Mrs Merkel has tried to assure Central and Eastern European states that the pipeline would not make Germany reliant on Russia for energy.

Where do you start? A few facts which must be patently obvious to everybody else:

1. Russia IS using its oil and gas as economic 'weapons', always has done, always will. Same as the Saudis.

2. Russia has every incentive to build its own pipeline under the Baltic. They won't have to pay Ukraine 'billons of dollars' and Ukraine won't be able to (threaten to} just turn off the taps.

3. Putin is quite happy for Ukraine to go bankrupt, that's a bonus as far as he's concerned.

4. The money which Germany is offering to pay Ukraine to help it 'expand its renewable energy sector' will have zero effect on anything.

5. Germany IS completely reliant on Russian gas for energy. They shut down their coal fired plants (having been bamboozled by the wrong explanation for the Greenhouse Effect) and started phasing out their nuclear plants after the Fukushima disaster (even though Germany isn't an earthquake zone).

6. IIRC, Germany has been reliant on Russian gas for decades. The Russians even gave former the previous Chancellor a (no doubt very well-paid) psuedo-job with Nord Stream, the organisation running the new pipeline.

7. Germany is not going to impose proper harsh sanctions on Russia, as Putin could simply cut off the gas supplies. He can hold out longer than Germany can. The impact of sanctions is slow, drip-drip. The impact of having your electricity sector shut down is immediate.

"Woman eaten alive by pigs after suffering seizure in pen"

From Sky News:

The 56-year-old woman had gone to feed the animals when she suffered an epileptic seizure, it is reported.

She fell down in the pen and was bitten by the pigs. Her husband is understood to have discovered her body...

Her husband is believed to have gone to bed early, as he was unwell, which is why she was not found quickly. She died of blood loss.

... the world's most gullible policemen?

"How embarrassment may be Putin's downfall"

Sven Hughes in City AM, three days ago:

When serving as a British army reservist within Psychological Operations, we used to refer to these subtle divisions as “fissures”.

These fault lines in enemy audiences could be exploited to create great chasms between the authoritarians and the minions that sustained their power. Quite simply, the minions love the sense of associated status they get from being in cahoots with the authoritarian – they don’t like to be laughed at.

The RT interview seemed to reveal this exact fissure – Putin’s arrogance is starting to make even his most loyal supporters feel social embarrassment.

This could be the one silver lining for the west from the Salisbury incident. Information warfare only works when you have the broadcasters and re-broadcasters in place to disseminate your message. One break in the chain, such as a pair of agents becoming an international laughing stock, and the whole propaganda machine quickly suffers a complete malfunction.

An interesting but very bold prediction, I thought.

To my surprise, from the BBC today:

... the cover-up seems to have backfired as badly as the actual operation. Instead of quaking with fright, many Russians are laughing at their spies instead.

"It's not just teasing, it's mockery. I have friends who couldn't believe our lot could be so rotten," Gennady Gudkov admits. "Now they call me, and they believe."

With jokes and memes flooding social media, some commentators suggest a line has been crossed.

"What seemed morally unacceptable before has become the new norm, it's routine," Andrei Kolesnikov wrote on Gazeta.ru, calling the Salisbury suspects' appearance a "clown show" and their story "obvious, evasive lies".

But he sees another new norm in response.

"Society is laughing at the authorities," the journalist wrote. "State propaganda is becoming genuinely comic and that discredits and weakens those in power."

Yeah! Go bear!

From The Daily Mail:

This is the terrifying moment an angry performing bear attacked its handlers after being forced to ride a skateboard and beaten with a stick at a circus in Russia.

Children in the audience screamed as the animal turned on its keepers moments after riding down a ramp during a performance at a village in Russia's Volgograd region.

Desperate members of staff tried to beat the brown bear with sticks as it pinned a colleague to the ground.

Pop over there to watch the action in all its g(l)ory.

Daily Mail on top form

Everything you need to know right there in the headline.

Putin enemy living in John Terry's old £5million mansion 'was poisoned just weeks before Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter were attacked'

Fun Online Polls: Bitcoin, Trump and Russian interference in the Presidential election.

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Bitcoin is...

A decentralised digital currency - 25%
A massive great pyramid scheme - 63%
Other, please specify - 11%

A lot of people left a comment saying "both", with the benefit of hindsight, I should have included this as an option.

I'm with the majority on this, thanks to everybody who took part.

By the way, if you know how to sell Bitcoin, would you be so kind as to send me an email and explain? Ta!
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The whole Russiagate (are we calling it that yet?) saga rumbles on.

Originally, I assumed it was something that the Clinton team invented to discredit Trump, but now it looks as if Trump is really botching a cover-up i.e. there must be something in it.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll.

"Did Trump collude with Russia in the 2016 Presidential election?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Russia/Syria & North Korea

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Should the G7 impose further sanctions on Russia because of Assad's nerve gas attack in Syria?

Yes - 7%
No - 93%

Good, I was with the majority on that.

There was some scepticism in the comments as to whether Assad's regime was behind the attack and whether there was actually a nerve gas attack. I would add, even if there was and Assad's forces were behind it, how are the Russians to blame (the people as opposed to Putin) and even if Putin were somehow to blame, what difference would it make, apart from pushing up our domestic gas prices and making Putin even more delusional?

Thanks to all 81 who took part.
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This week, let's stick with the big issues.

"How would you prefer Donald Trump to deal with North Korea?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Government guidelines for physical activity & Imposing sanctions on Russia

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Do you achieve the government's guidelines for physical activity every week? Multiple answers allowed.

As it happens I do, I like to keep fit - 20 votes
Yes, I take government guidelines very seriously - 0 votes
Don't know, don't care - 38 votes
No, probably not - 16 votes
No, certainly not - 8 votes
None of their business - 52 votes
Kraft durch Freude! - 4 votes
Other, please specify - 1 vote

Which is, reassuringly, pretty much what I expected. Thanks to all 102 who took part.
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Daft idea of the week was floated by Boris Johnson at a G7 meeting:

Boris Johnson has failed to secure the backing of the G7 nations for swift sanctions against Russia and Syria, leaving the US-UK plan to pressurise Vladimir Putin in tatters.

Germany and Italy vetoed the idea of targeting Russian and Syrian military leaders until an investigation has been carried out into who was to blame for last week’s nerve gas attack in Idlib province.

I think the link between Russia, Assad and the actual nerve gas attack is far too tenuous to justify sanctions, even if there was any chance of them 'working' i.e. persuading Putin to change his mind (which appear to be zero).

Which reminds me, the EU imposed limited sanctions on Russia because of the Ukraine/Crimea annexation thing three years ago and what difference has that made? These were recently extended by another six months without anybody even noticing.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll: "Should the G7 impose further sanctions on Russia because of Assad's nerve gas attack in Syria?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Testing Times: Whose Independent Missile Test Anyway?

Testing times again for a Defense Secretary over the latest Trident Program. It was never, ever simple though. Back in the 1960’s everybody understood that the British goal of Nato was to keep the American Empire in, the Germans down, and the Russian Empire out. But it was never clear how the British, sub-launched, ‘independent’, Doomsday weapons contributed to this system.

At that time the American’s made some deals with Russia (Salt 1,2) that they would limit methods of shooting down the incoming missiles. The Russian deployed what anti-ballistic missiles they were allowed to own around Moscow. The problem for the British, who had Polaris, was that it could only deliver 16x2 warheads. Not enough to wipe out the target.

But it may well have been the case that Britain, in Polaris, had an ‘independent’ system. Because we quickly made clever party balloons that would deploy in space and spoof the Soviet counter missile control systems around Moscow (Christ comrade! It looks like 16x10 ish warheads). So keeping the end of the world in our hands too. The Americans had to admit that we were very clever. But they had to make sure we couldn’t do that again.

Why? The British ‘independent’ system, Washington knew, was never designed to scare the Russians, but was always designed to scare them. We threated to trip the exchange between American and the USSR by making the attack look big enough to be the first American wave on Moscow. That’s it then: a 1960s ‘independent’ British system actually targets the American political elite, because, in the end, we did not trust them much more than we trusted the Russians.

Now Trident D3,4,5 does not need to spoof (I bet it does though). But is it independent? Thinking about the headlines; who really tested the missile? I conjecture, given the non-classified history above, that the British test was actually a deeper American test. The Americans were showing the Russians and the Chinese that there is no independent British deterrent, and that they will be the ones who decide the fate of the world not the British. 'All telemetery old chap, don't you know'.

So what is all the smoke and fire about an Independent Nuclear Deterrent? Simple. I suspect that, by chance, the British and Americans have alighted on this hugely expensive mechanism as our particular method of paying our tribute to the American Empire. We are just servants to the empire, but everybody in the US and UK Military Industrial complex is happy, are they not?

Fun Online Polls: Refuelling Russian warships & That Article 50 judgment.

The results to last week-and-a-half's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Would it particularly bother you if Spain allowed a Russian warship to refuel in a Spanish-controlled port?

Yes - 7%
No - 89%
Other, please specify - 4%

Good, it appears that I'm with the majority on that one.

Top comment:

SlightlyChilly: War Back in the GODs there was a face off between two Superpowers. Nowadays, arguing about who should refuel a museum piece rustbucket from an economically irrelevant backwater is a transparent nonsense.
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And on to that Court decision on whether the govt can trigger Article 50 without a vote in the House of Commons or a new Act of Parliament, about which millions of words have been written, mainly by non-experts which includes me so I wont bother adding to it. I did one or two units of constitutional law on my law degree and AFAICS they just make it up as they go along.

What is interesting is that the decision itself appears to be unclear what the government is now supposed to do.

Let's see if we can guess what will happen next…

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: The 'price' of Single Market access & Refuelling the Admiral Kuznetsov

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Which 'price' is worth paying to retain tariff and quota free access to the EU Single Market?

Freedom for EU workers to come to the UK to work - 15%
A market access fee of about £5 billion a year - 8%
Both - 2%
Either/or but not both - 1%
Neither. I prefer Hard Brexit - 72%
Other, please specify - 2%

Good, that's that settled then. I hope the government is on message. Exactly 100 people took part (thanks all) so no 'differences due to rounding' this week either :-)
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A strange quandary again today. From the BBC:

Spain has said it will review the permit for refuelling it gave to Russian warships expected to support a bombing campaign against rebel-held eastern Aleppo, in Syria.

The decision to allow the use of the port of Ceuta was criticised. Nato expressed concern that the ships could be used to bomb civilians...

That's more than a tad hypocritical of 'Nato' (when did it stop being called 'NATO'?) if you ask me, and it  serves the Russians right for not having seen this coming and built a nuclear powered aircraft carrier (lack of easy access to the oceans was always the Russian Navy's Achilles' Heel), but hey.

The whole concept of allowing foreign warships to use your ports has always puzzled me, there is a very strange legal status to all these things and it's always surrounded with diplomatic flummery, but AFAIAA, Spain is not in any way at war with Russia and it's entirely up to Spain whether they want to allow it or not.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll: "Would it particularly bother you if Spain allowed a Russian warship to refuel in a Spanish-controlled port?"

Vote HERE or use the widget in the side bar.

If you push your luck too often, you will get shot down.

From The Telegraph, 13 September 2015:

RAF jets were last week scrambled for the seventh time this year to intercept Russian bombers near the UK. Flights by Russian long-range nuclear bombers skirting British airspace routinely spy on UK air defences, but should not be considered provocative, a senior former Russian officer has told the Telegraph…

We Brits are far too civilised to just shoot them down. We'd measure to an inch whether they really were within 'British airspace and would stand politely to one side if they were outside it. And there'd be all sorts of unpleasantness afterwards for those involved.

We can safely assume that the Russians take the piss over or near dozens of other countries as well, most of whom also tolerate them being such arse holes.

Turkey warned Russia in early October that it would no longer endure violations of Turkish airspace, and last week they snapped and shot one down.

So that while that one overflight last week might have been an innocent mistake, in terms of the bigger picture, the Russians got what they deserved.

Instead of whining and asking for an apology, what the Russians might try is a tactic called "not violating other people's airspace" or "politely asking for permission first". That often works, how do you think civil aviation functions?

Fun Online Polls: Abroad and The News

The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Abroad. All very grim, all very tricky.

Waves of migrants in the Mediterranean - 44%
Isis and Syria - 16%
Iran nuclear deal - 11%
Grexit or not - 7%
Ukraine-Russia war - 5%
Ebola - 5%
Chinese islands - 4%
Other, please specify - 7% (4 votes)

Going by the headlines, it's the waves of migrants which are people are concerned about most. My approach is the same as on anything else, the UK government should do whatever is in the best interests of the existing British population/electorate as a whole.

It appears that people still haven't quite got the hang of the "Other, please specify" option. Four people voted for it but only one person made a suggestion.
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This week's Fun Online Poll:

"What were you doing when you heard the news?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

It's a Fry and Laurie one-liner, I think.

Fun Online Polls: Carnivores & The collapse of civilisation

The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Is it possible to a have an eco-system where all the animals are carnivores?

Yes - 15% votes
No - 74% votes
Other, please specify - 11%

Clearly the answer is "no", well done 74% of us.

As DP said, "Such an eco-system would reduce to a snake eating its own tail."

There is not earthly way that you can explain how the answer could be "yes" and there is no third possibility.
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This week's Fun Online Poll is fairly self-explanatory.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

They own land! Give them money!

From City AM:

Brussels set to make payouts for farmers hit by Putin’s sanctions

EUROZONE fruit and vegetable farmers hit by the Russian govern­ment’s food sanctions are set for a payout, with Brussels pledging €125m (£99.9m) in compensation to those affected yesterday.

The action is designed to help prop up food prices in the single market. Dacian Ciolos, the EU’s agriculture commissioner, said that the action was meant to “reduce overall supply of a number of fruit and vegetable products” so that there would not be too much downwards pressure on prices.

"West hits Russia with food export ban"

From the BBC:

The EU, USA and some other Western countries are imposing a "full embargo" on food exports to Russia, in response to Russia's actions in the Ukraine.

President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy said it would include fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, milk and dairy imports. Australia, Canada and Norway have agreed similar sanctions.

Elsewhere, Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Ukraine's freedom and future were "under attack," promising support against Russian "aggression".

The latest developments come during heightened tensions between Russia and the West over Ukraine, where heavy shelling was reported in the eastern rebel stronghold of Donetsk on Thursday.

Peace Talks

If you Google the phrase, you get, for example, the following list of combatants/opponents:

Israel v Fatah/Hamas

Afghanistan v Pakistan/Taliban

Colombia v FARC

Ukraine v Russian separatists

Now, we now that these talks are doomed to failure, as the parties will never agree with each other.

But what we ought to try at least, is invite all eight parties to Geneva and choose random pairs to hold talks (like the World Cup draw).

So the Israeli negotiating team ends up sitting down with FARC; Russian separatists go face to face with Colombia; Ukraine meets up with Fatah/Hamas, and so on.

They can have a gay old chat with each other, have a good moan about respective grievances and problems, their aims and goals but will agree they have no actual differences.

So FARC agrees that it will not try to overthrow the Israeli state and Israel agrees that it will not interfere in the Central American drug trafficking and kidnapping business etc, they sign a mutual non-agression and free trade pact and become best mates.

After the first round, lots are drawn again until every team has negotiated with six other teams, each time shaking hands and getting on famously.

In the final round, a few days later once everybody is nice and relaxed and in a conciliatory mood, negotiating teams sit down with their original opponents.

With a bit of luck, in the final round, they'll be so caught up in the mood that they will actually kiss, compromise and make up.

"Vladimir Ilyich Lenin condemns Nicholas II's 'Nazi' remarks"

From the BBC:

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin has described Nicholas II's reported comparison of him with future German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler as "unacceptable".

One of 22,000 Polish officers later murdered by the Soviets in the Katyn Forest, who met the Tsar of Russia during a royal tour to Canada said he had likened some future Nazi actions in Ukraine to those of Mr Lenin.

The leader of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, who has faced criticism in the West for signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, said if the Tsar had made such comments they were "wrong" and "not royal behaviour".

The Winter Palace declined to comment.

Russian gas: Monopsony vs monopoly*

From The Daily Mail:

Energy prices in Britain will rise unless urgent action is taken to prevent Russia holding countries to ransom by cutting off gas supplies, a minister has warned.

Energy Secretary Ed Davey warned aggression from Russian President Vladimir Putin could quickly force up costs for families in the UK. Energy security will be high on the agenda of a meeting of the G7 meeting in Rome early next month.

A quarter of Europe's gas comes from Russia, half of which passes through Ukraine which has been the focus of mounting tensions after the Crimea region was annexed by Moscow.

Last week President Putin insisted it was 'impossible' for Europe to stop buying gas from Russia...

According to Wiki, European Union countries use 460 bn m3 a year, so they import about 115 bn m3 from Russia. Russian exports are 173 bn m3 a year, so two-thirds of that goes to Europe.

So we are dependent on them - but they are equally dependent on us.

If the EU, or European countries acting in concert, really wanted to do something they would draw the lessons from the way Thatcher dealt with the miners or the way supermarkets squeeze their suppliers, and simply set a cap on the price which they are all willing to pay for imports of gas. This price can be any figure they like, as long as it exceeds the extraction and transport costs.

I can't see Russia's other customers buying all the spare capacity, indeed they could join the buying cartel, hence the exporters will just have to accept it.

(The only reason why the EU/European governments wouldn't do this is if a lot of the senior people are in the pocket of Russian oligarchs, which they probably are, it is certainly true for German politicians.)

Sorted.

* OK, technically that is probably oligopsony vs oligopoly.

"Ukraine vote plan blights Crimean business investment, says Cable"

From the BBC:

Oleksandr Turchynov's commitment to an in/out referendum on continuing membership of the Russian Federation is "blighting" investment in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin will warn later.

The former KGB official will say firms will "look elsewhere" to invest if access to the Russian market is jeopardised…

Mr Turchynov says a full renegotiation of the relationship between Ukraine and Moscow is needed and voters need a say on the issue of membership of the Russian Federation.

In other news:

Crimean MPs' commitment to an in/out referendum on continued membership of Ukraine is "blighting" investment in the region, acting Ukraine President Oleksandr Turchynov will warn later.

The politician will say firms will "look elsewhere" to invest if access to the Ukraine market is jeopardised…

Crimean MPs say a full renegotiation of the relationship between Crimea and Kiev is needed and voters need a say on the issue of membership of the Ukraine.