The New Coffee Room

From what I can tell Owen’s manifested nuttery is not limited to her fantasy regarding the President of France’s spouse.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20251117-the-animals-that-can-eat-poisons-and-not-die

@Wim

Makes sense in so far as Russia is not and never has been a monolith state. It also explains the internal struggle since the dissolution of the USSR between the siloviki (strongmen - security services, military) and the financial/industrial business elites. He correctly identifies Rosneft’s Igor Sechin as more than just associated with the FSB. Back in the 90’s Rosneft was the poor boy in the oil patch a badly managed state owned oil company that could not compete with its privatized competition like LUKOil or Surgutneftegaz. That all changed with the arrival of Putin in the Kremlin and during the course of his first two terms Rosneft came to be among the top three Russian oil companies. By now it is probably the most powerful in the country as in terms of production, refining capacity and lucrative financial assets outside of the oil business internally and abroad.

@Horace

You are probably correct. The reality of the current administration is that it is too preoccupied with damage control measures such as putting out Trump’s fires rather than evidence tampering or concocting false narratives and paper trails. Besides, if there is anything that would cast Trump in a bad light in the alleged Epstein files, it would involve ill obtained money from dubious third parties rather than the corruption of underage escorts; topic of little to no interest or consequence to Trump’s base and sufficiently arcane that any fault or blame can rest solely with the dead and buried, Epstein

@kluurs

@Doctor-Phibes said in Very Substantially:

@Mik said in Very Substantially:

And exactly how does that happen with deficits as far as the eye can see?

You don't understand the genius of Trump's genius. He gives everybody a bribedividend and they think he's fucking Santa Claus they will use it boost the economy, and having more money means there's less debt!

Up here, our right wing populist premiers, Ralph Klein in the early 2000s and more recently Danielle Smith, paid out similar cash incentives albeit of substantially less coinage to the rabble. We referred to the vote bribes as Ralph bucks and Dani dollars.

I guess one could say then the American rabble will be receiving Donnie dollars.

Thank you for explaining in detail how those people come to occupy those positions in various organisations.

@Doctor-Phibes said in A sign of something not good:

@89th said in A sign of something not good:

Wait so we have 165 people working in HR now?

"Working" is such a subjective term.

A better term would be “occupying positions within….”

Hopefully the cloud will clear this evening and I’ll be able to marvel at them. Already dark here.

@Mik said in Look out, Elon:

некомпетентность

Actually

В принципе это нормально, и так всегда в России.

Punch brothers are all consummate musicians. The guitarist’s father was Ben Eldridge the banjo player in The Seldom Scene. Saw him many times with The Scene; even had a coffee with him during a Bluegrass festival in Chilliwack BC close to 25 years ago.

Apparently the Aurora were out in their full splendour here last evening around 7 pm to the northwest. As usual I missed the whole light show.

@Axtremus

….heating a Fin’s tuchus.

You mean a Finn’s takapuoli.

@jon-nyc said in Maybe he means per month:

Yes but she’s spent almost no time in DC this term so he probably frequents the Whole Foods in Georgetown.

I can just imagine him marvelling at the concept of coin deposit shopping carts.

The Finns have been actively involved in using waste heat recovery co-generation for heating since the early 1980’s. By the mid 80s they were already world leaders. I remember a taking a Finnish business delegation into the oil sands to look at the feasibility of setting up a similar cogeneration plant for Ft. MacMurray in 1988. The concept was way beyond what the politicians and oil patch here could get their head around. The result is we continued to waste heat energy rather than invest in efficiency until very recently when he regulatory system finally began to catch up with the technologies the likes of the Finns developed now over 40 or more years ago.

@Doctor-Phibes said in Maybe he means per month:

Food costs have skyrocketed. I'm a little surprised Trump hasn't noticed it when he does his weekly shop.

I suspect his little Mrs. looks after the grocery shopping so he might not be aware.

I am content to live in a country that adheres to the Westminster system of parliamentary governance. Should there be some institutional reforms to make it more efficient and accountable? Absolutely, and I could name at least two or three that ought to be addressed sometime in the near to distant future. No need however to rush since the present tendency to populist appeal and extremes does not offer an opportune time for rational debate or decision making.

@Doctor-Phibes

Yes it opened the gates to the unthinkable.

You know those Romanovs were Russian in name only, in fact by 1914 all European royals looked like Hohenzollerns! George V, Nikolai II and Wilhelm II could have passed as triplets from the same brood. The lot all bad eggs if you ask me. Some of the others even had the cheek to change their family name from Battenberg to Mountbatten in an effort to hide their true identities. All goes back to the House of Lancaster and its bastard progeny, those damned Beauforts.

Bonaparte had them all figured out over a hundred years prior.

@Doctor-Phibes

People like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage are obviously still going to toady up to the inbred Hanoverians.

I blame John of Gaunt’s bastard progeny that came to make up the House of Beaufort for all the personal shortcomings of today’s British royals. It all started with Margaret Beaufort marrying Edmund Tudor then giving birth to the future usurper, Henry Tudor.