Mandy Lifeboats

No. They are in NATO. Israel cannot join NATO.

It isn't and I never suggested it was. Nor is it in Switzerland's interests, Chile's interests or the interests of most countries in the world.

Israel is surrounded by enemies. Their priority is to defend their perceived homeland. But this includes offensive operations against their neighbours. Israel’s Armed Forced are vastly superior to Iran’s. But Israel’s biggest advantage is total air supremacy over Iran. Not superiority but supremacy. Iran still uses the F14 as a frontline fighter. They are jets from the 1970 and the US hasn’t supplied any spares or maintenance for 40 years. After the Ukraine war is over, Russia could give weapons to Israel’s enemies. They could sell fighters to Iran and remove Israel’s air supremacy. They could also flood the area with more basic weapons that would assist terrorist groups/freedom fighters. Israel has nothing to gain by directly opposing Russia. I would rather they didn’t. The enemy of my enemy is often thought of as a friend. Israel has plenty of enemies who we don’t want as Russia’s friends.

Israel are very much with the West but are doing it in a very clever way. Israel is supplying “non-lethal” equipment to Ukraine. They are also assisting Ukraine’s medical services by treating civilians in Israel. Weapons are making their way to the battle but in a deniable manner. For instance……. Israel wants to know how their weapons would cope with attacks by Iranian suicide drones. These are being supplied to Russia in large numbers. Israel asked the Polish Army to test their systems for them and shipped off a number of systems for evaluation. Poland decided to sub contract that work out. You’ll never guess who Poland chose to evaluate the systems on their behalf? The recent bombing of Iranian weapon factories could also be seen as “ inadvertently” assisting Ukraine.

Ukraine has set up 3 lines of defence. If the first one falls the troops fall back and begin building a new 3rd line. Ukraine can slowly retreat for hundreds of miles. Each retreat puts them in a better position for supply and air defences. But Russia can’t do this. They have to hold the line without any significant retreats. The supply lines to Crimea are a narrow strip of land and an even narrower bridge . Losing the land supply routes would be an utter disaster. Losing land that put the Crimea bridge in HIMARS range would be a disaster.

Although it was destroyed by a carelessly discarded cigarette 300 metres away.

The Russian Embassy in Berlin now has a burnt out Russian tank parked outside.

Russia. Misrepresenting history.

Unfortunately history is full of examples where that's exactly what happened. Stalin wanted the USSR flag flying over the Reichstag on 1 May 1945. The USSR lost thousands of troops trying to achieve it. They didn't make it. In a desperate attempt to change history a Russian plane dropped a flag onto the roof. Stalin was told that their flag was on top of the Reichstag. It was. Sort of. The USSR took the building the following day. But even then they changed history. It was restaged for the cameras. But even that was altered when someone noticed that the soldiers were wearing watches on both arms that they'd stolen.

I have been following this guy since he started posting videos about the war. He is Ukraine biased but his videos have proven to be correct the majority of the time. He’s well worth a look.

Ukraine has struck numerous ammo dumps and military sites in the last 12 hours. It seems they have received their latest resupply of HIMARs ammunition and are making good use of it.

Far enough away to be safe from a pistol shot.

Twitter is funny today. Russia has set up false accounts that are pretending to be everyday Finish citizens. The themed message of these accounts is that NATO would not be able to save Finland from a Russian attack. But.........they've cocked it up. They have confused the word "Save - to rescue" with the similar word "Save - to download a computer file". There are now thousands of tweets saying things like "NATO cannot download us" and "Download us from NATO".

I think he's just said "Blessed are the cheesemakers". But I suspect that's not to be taken literally and is intended to encompass dairy workers in general. Monty Python. 1979.

He's giving a speech. To summarise - Russia never wanted war. Its all the fault of the West. He's presently blaming the LGBT community for the "degradation and degeneration of Russian Children". On a more amusing note, soldiers will be guaranteed 14 days annual leave. Presumably to pop home and save their children from those terrible gays.

Another blow to the Russian economy. Serbia has decided to buy fighters from France. They will buy 12 new fighters and 12 reconditioned ones. That's not a particularly massive blow in itself. The Serbian Airforce is heavily dependent upon MIGs. Serbia says it cannot buy more Russian planes because Russia cannot supply the spare parts to keep their existing fleet of MIGs airborne. That's a sure sign that sanctions are biting.

Almost 1 year since Putin fantasised about striding into Kyiv as a conqueroring hero. How wrong he was.

Russian TV is reporting that they knew about the visit and they "allowed it to happen." I'd say that's 50% true.

It depends where the visit is. At the moment the following are patrolling the Ukraine border in NATO airspace. 2 AWACS planes, 2 Black Hawk Helicopters, 2 planes that are said to be Private Jets from Sweden that are always patrolling that area. You can bet there's much more that we can't see. I would guess there's a number of F22 over Kyiv and a lot more poised to go if needed.

Why only 3? Where's Lennon?

A drink driving offence can be committed on a road or other public place. A public place is unfortunately not defined by the person who owns it, instead it is defined by whether the public have access and utilise access to the land. It can also be defined by a number of other factors such as the signs in the area, whether there are any barriers to entry and whether the owner restricts access. It is a very technical argument that is defined on a case by case basis, there is unfortunately no universal answer. If you were stopped and arrested in a privately owned supermarket car park, but the car park is open to the general public and it is during opening times, then even though the land is privately owned, and even if you need a ticket to park there, it would absolutely be classed as a public place and you would be guilty of the offence. If you were stopped and arrested in a privately owned supermarket car park, but it was outside of opening times and the owner restricted access by, for example, putting a barrier across the entry or operating a wheelclamping service, then the car park is likely to be considered a private place and it is unlikely you would be convicted of drink driving. https://www.pattersonlaw.co.uk/faqs/drink-driving-private-land/

McDonald's is private land but its also a highway that is open to the public. It's a bit of a myth that you can't be done for traffic offences on private land. I thought the magistrate explained this to you in great detail on the day of the trial. Let it go.

Another child orphaned.

To my surprise, one hundred stories high People getting loose y'all, getting down on the roof Folks are screaming, out of control It was so entertaining when the boogie started to explode I heard somebody say disco inferno (Burn baby burn) burn that mother down