MicroB

The portrait was by Nikas Safronov, the Russian People's Artist, who has previously painted Putin, and in 2017, did a portrait of the then 45th President. He did another one in 2020;

https://www.yahoo.com/news/rachel-maddow-explains-ridiculous-true-175426436.html So, an imaginary friend is behind this.

Or non-US companies move to the US, and set up transplant factories, much like the Japanese and German car companies did. selecting states with little or no car manufacture history, but willing local governments willing to bend over backwards for the sake of jobs. Hence Billybob is making Mercs in Alabama. I predict within a generation, US domestic car brands will be gone. Yes, you can buy American made cars, but not American designed. Britain tried protectionism to limit Japanese car sales, which removed competition, allowing BL to churn out dross, and largely get away with it. China also uses robotics. Their production lines are not small children polishing pipes. Only fools believe that trope. A similar trope is that the American factory worker is lazy, obese, a wife beater and smokes weed during his lunch break. We selected Chinese suppliers who used precision German tooling. The main attraction; they were more willing that other suppliers to meet the customer's specs. Some things you literally can't make in the US. If you have a diagnostic test based around a carefully curated mouse cell line owned by a Belgium company, no, you cannot go and simply make that antibody in America. It is literaly impossible to replicate the Ab, which is protected by IP anyhow. https://www.carscoops.com/2025/04/us-made-cars-and-trucks-are-not-really-safe-from-trumps-tariffs/ The F150 uses parts fro 24 different countries. The supply chain could be reshored, eventually. By that time, Ford will have lost market share for its now over priced truck, once the Ting Tong Truck Company sets up shop with its cheap truck made from CKD kits.

1. Putin is drawing a line at slaughtering his own citizens; he hasn't the guts to send Muscovites into battle, preferring to take a chance with mutinous convicts, press-ganged Somali students and suspect DPRK troops. 2. Read statements put out by General Chris Cavoli regarding Kyiv's recruitment policies. 3. US carrier from before WW2 were wooden deck carriers for speed of manouevre. Your history books are defective. The single thing that turned the war was the A-Bomb. Until the 6 and 9th August, to the average marine, they didn't feel like they were winning. Operation Olympic was the planned invasion of the Japanese Home Islands, for November 1945. This involved the UK supplying 18 carriers (25% of strength) following release from Atlantic duties. The planning was tossed when it was determined that the Japanese had 4 times as many combat aircraft as originally envisaged, thanks to kamikaze tactics, and possessed a much larger standing army than envisaged. There were considerable untouched reserves in Malaya, Indonesia, Indo-China, Formosa and the Phillippines. Planning had assumed the Japanese could put up a resistance until 1947, with the Allies prepared for losses of over 800,000 men. Hoover went so far as to suggest 1 million dead Americans were needed to finish Japan. I wouldn't suggest without the A-Bomb, the end of the war would have been very different, with the US losing its stomach for a fight (memoranda suggested the US was facing domestic difficulties in sustaining the draft, and might not have been able to make the additional necessay mobilisations). Obviously history makes it obvious to us when a war was lost, or won. Britain had won WW2 by surviving the Battle of Britain (without that, there would have been no US support). Japan had lost WW2 by losing at Midway etc. When my grandfather raised his hands at Singapore, he probably wasn't thinking that the Japanese had bitten off more than they could chew. For all of Russia's powers that you are a fanboi of, they aren't doing all that well against an opposition that started off numerically inferior, ill equipped. The RuAF is nowhere to be seen (thats the biggest mystery; a Western operation would have ensured complete control of the airspace). The UkrAF now appears to be conducting high altitude bombing runs against Russian forward positions with near impunity (either they have run out of SAMs because they used them all up blowing up supermarkets, or the addition of new systems, such as the F16s from European allies, have contributed towards their neutralisation (the use of AARGM such as AGM-88s retrofitted to Soviet era aircraft, means SAM crews are now afraid to switch on their radars. Or the systems that are now jamming Russia's ace, the glide bomb). Or, that might not be the case.

You mean Delores Cahill, former leader of the Irish Freedom Party, who also stated that wearing a face mask causes brain damage, who claimed the COVID PCR tests contained Ebola fragments, who said there was a plan to bomb Rotterdam to disrupt the European food supply. She had founded Protagen, which was sold to Oncimmune for $5.5m. Anyhow, 90% of Brits alive in the 80s should be dead by now with nvCJD.

You deliberately withold the fact the lab is also a reference lab, though I doubt you understand what that means. You deliberately overstate the virulance of this novel virus (it was never a mysterious virus, it was of a type signposted since SARS and MERS). The most likely explanation is still zoonitic transmission, as its the case for over 60% of EIDs in human history. The next, though rather more distant explanation is accidental release from the BSL2 reference lab. The next explanation, very unlikely, is accidental release of a modified virus from the French built BSL4 research lab. Of course, you can never rule out the possibility of a deranged scientist wafting an open test tube in the market. You could also not rule out the Hollywood fantasy of the escaped lab monkey making friends with a little girl (Outbreak). I do though. If they ever figure it out, you and I will be long dead. 107 years after Spanish Flu, we still don't really know where it came from. We are closer to knowing, but its not definitive, and the evidence is purely circumstantial. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/29/pentagon-anthrax-australia-2008 This article is missing a few details, notably the number of labs affected. It was hundreds of labs. I know most of the labs took few precautions, because they were assured the material was inert. The incident demonstrated its actually very difficult to initiate a consequential lab release. A Lancet study identified 16 lab incidents over a 20 year period leading to the accidental release of infectious material. 75% of releases involved bacteria.. That's an extremely low accident rate. Every single hospital will have at least one path lab where they are deliberately culturing infectious material from patient samples. Every single university will have research and teaching labs where they are deliberately and accidently cultivating infectious material. There are about 50,000 medical device companies, about half of thoses are developing diagnostic tests, which involves cultivating infectious material. There are about 25,000 pharmaceutical companies, wth probably 10,000 of those working on anti-microbials, which, you guessed it, involves working with disease causting organisms, including those with antibiotic resistance. Every sewage works will employ pumps and an activated sludge method that does a pretty good job of generating Hep-C laden foam that gets blown around on the wind. All this theoretically hazardouz activity, and we've not been wiped out. When Amerithrax happened (deliberate release of weaponised Anthrax through the US mail), two people died; one a woman in her 90s, and another an obese older man with a history of heart disease.

Judging from his woe-is-me speeches, apparently he does. He believes Russia still wields a global big stick, but in reality, his crumbling feudal empire is increasingly in hock to China who has already seized Russian territory without a murmur from Moscow (Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island). In December 1944, for the Western Allies, things didn't look all that rosey. In September 1944, the British suffered a significant defeat and loss of elite troops ar Arnhem. In Belgium, the American Army was on the verge of collapse, with the German army, apparently with superior equipment, powering towards Antwerp. If Antwerp fell, if all likelihood, the Western campaigh would have been over, with US forces stuggling to resupply. The Blitz on London had restarted, with the RAF having little power to do anything against V1 and V2 weapons. Worrying intelligence would have been reaching the Allies about Heisenberg's A-bomb work. Defeat is hard to gauge until it actually happens. Stalin at one point was on the verge of losing Moscow and being strung up from the nearest lamp post. In the Pacific, by summer 1945, the US was utterly exhausted, and suffering unsustainable losses of carriers to Kamikaze attacks (hence relived by the British armoured carriers). History tells us the tide of the war turned, but at the time, to those involved, on both sides, things were less certain. Russia doesn't have much left in the reserve. China is focussed on its own territorial disputes and destiny. Chechenya is now threatening a 3rd Chechen War, with Kaydriv reaching out to the Saudis for a possible bolt hole, and putting his 17 year old son, Adam, in charge of internal security. We don't hear much about Iran's IRGC anymore, following the collapse of Hezbollah. US Generals have reported that Ukraine has fixed its manning issues. Over half of Ukraine's ammunition comes from the EU/Putin's , and Czechia has received fresh funding for more shells. The US is not running out of weapons, and arguably, has hardly started. Putin's stated objectives were: 1. Protect the Russian people. Even a limited incursion into the Russian hinterland demonstrates he has not protected the Russian people. Its worsened. 2. "Denazify Ukraine"; most assume he means change the government in Kyiv. he has not achieved that, and Zelensky's position looks reasonably secure, with little evidence of dissent among the Ukrainian general staff. 3. Demililiterize Ukraine, ie reduce Ukraine's offensive capacity. The Ukrainian miitary is now the biggest in Europe. It is substantially better equipped than it was from just a few years ago, and it well on its way to transitioning to Western combined arms. 4. Putin has also not achieved territorial objectives, having lost most of Kherson, and failing to take Odessa and Kharkiv. Russias control of the Donbass is tenuous, and only possible through massive military reinforcement, to the extent the Russian military has had to denude other frontiers, including those with disputed borders (Russian-Finland). The War has lead to Russia being unable to defend its overseas strategic assets, such as losing its vital Mediterranean Naval base in Syria. Damascus was winning the civil war until suddenly, it wasn't. Russia is certainly not winning. But wars aren't like a football game

It was "stollen".

You are deliberately misrepresenting the history of Coca Cola and Ford in Germany. Coca Cola USA did not do business with the Nazis during WW2, neither did Ford USA. The German entities were not under the control of their American owners. Companies in Germany had little choice but to collaborate. Fanta came about because Coca Cola ceased shipping their syrup to their German subsidiary, who had to come up with something for a German army contract to keep the proverbial lights on (so they came up with an Apple-based soft drink). To boycott does not mean not to buy. Perhaps English is not your mother tongue. I don't buy a car from General Motors, but it doesn't mean I am boycotting the brand. I'm not buying a Model S because even 5 years ago, it didn't look all that, with styling that looked strangely dated even at the time, and an interior that felt cheap in places. Some might boycott Tesla due to links with the US government. Some might boycott Tesla because of links to the Chinese government. Some might boycott Tesla because they perceive the brand as being a particularly egregious sucker of the Taxpayer teat. Some might boycott Tesla because they perceive Musk as an illegal immigrant who became rich through misrepresentation of his citizenship. Anyone using the term "woke" in 2025 comes over as a middle aged snow flakey gammon Karen trying to be hip with the kids. In 2025, you're supposed to be sending it, and saying cry all you like.

It doesn't exist, unless Tesla is licensing the brand to some Alibaba junk with flashing lights. You, know, in the same way you can buy Timberland watches or Jeep sunglasses. Made for brand suckers.

If you want to copy paste conspiracy theories, learn to spell. Still, my experience with Fort Detrick is they couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery at times. I was among many exposed in 2008 due to their mistake. And GoF certainly didn't originate with those muppets. Its just a term to describe what us microbiologists and virologists had been doing for decades, but just called it something else.

How did the US get on in Iraq in 2003, population about 27 million? Or Vietnam, population in 1968 about 40 million. You might win a war, but you wouldn't win a peace. There are about 1.2 million US troops in the Continental US, facing about 100,000. If the poll on this forum is to be believed, 43% of the US miitary would switch sides in the event of hostilities (in the assumption that it is the US that is the hostile country). An attacking enemy, to be successful, is generally assumed to need a 3-4x numerical advantage. The US military has struggled against non-peer militaries (suffering losses against Panama and Greneda, heavy losses in Vietnam/Iraq/Afghanistan. I suspect if your leader chose to declare ware on essentially kith and kin, then the effective civil war would lead to sharp division within the US, leading to portions attempting to secede, leading to life imitating art. Of the poll is a nonsense. The notion is ridiculous, Your wetdream is ridiculous.

Thailand doesn't sell any cars in the US. The biggest automotive export is car tires I believe. Plus American car makers, with the exception of few, don't make RHD cars, except for mail delivery drivers. The Americans can try all they like to sell LHD Ford Rangers made in Michigan, but few Thais will bite when they can buy a cheaper RHD Rayong Ranger instead. And Ford will want them to keep buying the Thai Rangers because of the immense margin being made on those vehicles compared to the Seppo versions. Is the US government going to ban US firms from investing overseas next? I doubt they will shut down Ford Europe for a start. They didn't even shutdown Ford Germany when they were fighting the Naazis.

They love KFC though

He said he wasn't going to carry out the Heritage 2025 plan. But he is. And no, its not a big surprise as he lurches to Dark MAGA. Given the vast numbers of sacked bureaucrats, who's going to do the negotiating? 56 countries, some with more complex trading arrangements than others? He's gotten rid of thousands of bureaucrats, just to create a new bureaucracy. The US Customs and Border Protection is actually responsible for collecting these tariffs. About half of the CBP are involved in physical inspection of cargos etc. Probably their jobs are safe. But there are several thousand in the revenue collecting department, the sort who go around bothering companies with forms and other paperwork. They're the ones asked recently to justify their jobs to DOGE. No company, importer, is going to voluntarily pay the correct tariff. They will try tariff efficiency, some will try tariff evasion. That container of sneakers; were they really made in 10% Maldives, or 46% Vietnam. Expect the Irish border to get extremely fuzzy as to whether something is from the UK or from the Irish Republic. All this running around means extra cost, probably more hold-ups at ports, not just finished goods, but the supply chain. Pharmaceuticals are, for the moment, exempt, because the 47th President doesn't want someone dying because they can't get that excellent German made drug. But Medical devices are not exempt. Sorry, that pacemaker is costing 25% more because its all made in Germany. If you are a diabetic, the insulin you get is a tariff-free medicine, great. But the delivery device is not. That's now gone up in price. And the American supplier of the insulin can't just shift production of their pump or whatever, to the US, because they don't actually make it, because they don't know how to make it, so they went to someone, in Europe, but also in Asia, who does know how to make drug delivery devices. Ok, so they somehow find an American supplier of a device that can deliver the insulin. American company found, can design it. But what, the FDA says that's a new device. You need 5 years of clinical trials plus 18 months approvals to get that to the US market. Oh, and in the interests of government efficiency, there's a bit of a backlog on approvals. But don't worry, the boss says red tape will be cut. Insurance companies, who pay for these things, will step in say no way they are going to pay for shonky devices that they could get sued over. So now they will develop their own tech assessment processes to cover the lack of oversight the FDA is now carrying out, in the interests of government efficiency. Diabetics can always go back to needles and syringes, and insulin thats only works 50% of the time because its gotten too warm, or its contaminated due to a torn septum. They won't even need the Chinese CGMs; Indians do just fine by sensing when they are about to go into a coma, when they need their next shot. Of course, by that time, they've gone blind, and they don't have any fingers left due to the amputations. But its America First, right.

So US mechanised and genetically enhanced rice puts the Thai rice growers out of business. US cannibis already dominates the Thai market. His objective is to line his own pockets. His personal horizon is probably 5 years, because he knows either in 5 years he;s dead anyhow, and not in jail, or he'll be like his daddy, drooling, and not knowing when to go to the toilet, so who cares. He'll make sure, as the Mooch said, that the penguins are no longer ripping off America. The paranoid though will think of Dark MAGA, which fits in with Musk's Technocracy ideology. Tariffs replace Taxes, right? The US was founded on No Taxation without Representation. But if you don't have any taxes, then you don't need Representation, right? You don't need elections. Trust the bosses, they know best. And eventually that's trust AI. AI will make correct, infallible decisions for us, with zero payroll costs. This is going to end in war. Just like the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act set us up for WW2.

Its not just about cost of manufacturter. Something might be made elsewhere, wholly, or in part, due to IP (know how). The younger Trump wanted a Lamborghini sports car. he obviously couldn;t find an American made Lamborghini, so he settled for an Italian one. I doubt he considered cross shopping for a Firebird. He alsom wanted an American Rolls Royce. There actually used to be American Rolls Royces in the 1930s; they were made from kits. But now, he has to buy those blasted British ones. I doubt a Towncar was considered. I've looked at about 5000 US companies selling into the US. 1000 of these have product that are wholly US made. 800 have products wholly or partly made in APAC. 600 have products wholly or partly made in Europe. When the price of medical devices shot up in Russia, Putin challenged his best scientists and engineers to come up with Russian replacements. After all, they are a nuclear power, put a man into space etc. Should be able to make an ultrasound machine. The response was, no boss, we can't do it. I expect imaginative ways around the tariffs for manufacturers. Tariffs are being charged on car spare parts for instance. When does a car become spare parts? When you take the wheels off? The engine out, d oors off. Its a tactic to get around import tariffs in Thailand (BMW, Mercedes, Toyota etc). You import the cars as SKD, CKDs, pay a bit of tariff on whatever value you assign a pile of bits. Employ some low skill grunts to screw the thing together. If you are lucky, local government might even build the factory for you because you are bringing in "jobs". Of course, all the profits will continue to come to you. India and Thailand use huge tariffs to protect their workforce. The results of Indian and Thai ingenuity: Tariffs are a brilliant way to deliver a coup de grace to a car industry. Ask the UK or Russia. Take away competition, force people to buy cars merely on patriotic grounds, which is a blank cheque for manufacturers to make crap. Encourage transplant factories, who don't make crap. And you'll end up with the Australian car industry. Factories that shutter as soon as the exhange rate becomes unfavourable.

Or rumours being discussed about declaring US earnings by illegal immigrants to be declared illicit and open to seizure by the federal authorities, in the same manner earnings by organised crime can be seized. Individuals raising investments on the basis of misrepresenting immigration status may be open to law suits. This is how it works in Russia. An Oligarch can be made a non-Oligarch overnight, and the key thrown away following a "trial". The World's richest man can be rendered the World's least richest man (ie the biggliest debts ever seen, mostly owed to Saudis).

It doesn't exist. Posting nonsense like this is cruel.

It doesn't exist.

Which Putin? Vladimir or Yevgeny?

It was supposed to buy Stormy Daniel's silence on the mushoom. While Nielsen won the vote, to form a government, he needs to form a coaltion. Greenland is traditionally viewed in Denmark as quite "red", which is why Nielsen's win was a surprise; he is socially liberal but business friendly. He became party leader following a 2021 election that was driven by splits over the Kvanefjeldsmine mining project. This is a uranium-rare earths project, run by an Australian company with a Chinese shareholder. Nielsen was supportive of this, but the outgoing going government was opposed to such mining activities. He has to form a coalition, likely with the Naleraq Party, which is described as the most pro-American Greenland party. Nielsen's party favours a slow road to independance, but Naleraq favours a faster route. Nalaraq favours Free Association with Denmark, and is opposed to talks with the Americans over sovereignty

Since you asked: 2017: https://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/15/politics/trump-crimea-russia-twitter-obama/index.html https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/20/ukraine-ambassador-attacks-trump-aides-secret-peace-plan https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40350065 https://theintercept.com/2017/08/03/trumps-objections-russia-sanctions-law-suggest-might-trade-crimea-away/ https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-poroshenko-ukraine-good-progress-un-russia/28749439.html https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-presented-47m-deal-arm-ukraine-russia/story?id=51235203 2018 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fact-check-administration-actions-russia-tougher-trumps-words/story?id=53223453 https://ru.usembassy.gov/statement-by-secretary-pompeo-crimea-declaration/ https://rollcall.com/2018/08/14/trump-wont-follow-congressional-directives-on-russia-and-crimea/ https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-blames-obama-regime-for-ukraine-s-loss-of-crimea/29588249.html 2019 https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2019/09/pentagon-caught-middle-trump-ukraine-scandal/160188/ https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-10-16/as-ukraine-waited-for-u-s-assistance-death-toll-on-eastern-front-line-grew https://publicintegrity.org/national-security/trump-administration-officials-worried-ukraine-aid-halt-violated-spending-law/ 2020 https://www.courthousenews.com/independent-audit-says-trump-freeze-on-ukraine-aid-was-illegal/ https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-fire-vindman-sondland-after-impeachment-inquiry-testimony/30423541.html https://archive.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/bolton-memoir-trump-talks-profanely-about-ukraine-zelensky.html https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52885178 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/26/putin-rejects-donald-trumps-criticism-of-biden-family-business In 4 years, the 45th President's action on Ukraine appears to be authorizing a recommendation to send Javelins, then trying to block that. Then trying to get sanctions dropped against Russia as well as reversing long standing US government policy on recognition of conquered territories. A $45m transfer that included Javelins would have shipped a maximum of 200 systems, more likely 100 systems. About 50 of those would have been used in training.

If Putin agrees to a 30 day ceasefire, of course both sides will take the opportunity to re-equip. I have no doubt Putin will seek to break it. Since 2014, there have been 25 ceasefires between Ukraine and Russia, and 25 times Russia has broken those ceasefires. Details of 20 of those Ceasefires https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XdWtEbmvYH6BIQaqQ29kAhZDyQNs6HCf0uTqk7der6I/edit?pli=1&gid=0#gid=0