Great drama to watch. Even the Financial Times implies that in the conflict between Trump and Musk, chances are that Musk can learn from Jack Ma and Khodorkovsky. In a power struggle between a national leader and a billionaire, the politician always comes out on top.

The only problem with that is that Trump himself is not a “politician” but a billionaire playing politics. Trump-the-Billionaire’s play is anti politics, anti establishment, just as Musk is anti politics, anti established thinking.

What Trump is hoping for is to overthrow the Globalists’ agenda and replace it with the Trump-Netanyahu-Putin-Orban agenda. It is the revolution against the Globalists’ control to be replaced by TNPO control. The whole affair is predicated on Trump’s staying power. If he succeeds, they succeed.

Add to that a few chattering pundits, like Larry Johnson, Scott Ritter, Tucker Carlson, etc., who pump the air with clear pro Trump, pro Putin, pro Orban propaganda in the most incredible and increasingly treacherous undermining of the US’ own self interest.

Indeed, few moments in modern history can be recalled when a billionaire insurrectionist has succeeded against the interests of the secret government within the government. It brings to mind the Kennedys. But when the secret nongovernment becomes the government in a total power grab, the resulting conflict is between them and all the rest. Now that Trump is in power, all the talk about “the good of the country” has been replaced with the violent suppression of the slightest dissent. Whether it’s the pro Palestinian supporters, or “open-border- with-Mexico (emulation of European open border integration within the Schengen space, as nationalistic walls are indeed anachronistic in an interconnected Earth) or dissent on budget deficit spending, etc., – any dissent becomes deadly.

Same in Russia, and the other two fellow allies. In the US pro Putin pundits can freely browbeat Biden for his anti Russia policy, but try to do the same in Russia and criticize Putin’s attack on Ukraine and you get arrested in no time. But even less; try to post a comment on Sputnik or RT that “Moldovan” language is 100 percent Romanian and you get banned for life. As one noticed recently, try going into rt.com and criticize Stalin and the Bolsheviks and see how quick you get shot down.

But the reverse is also true. Should Trump get bogged down into a civil war and lose its air of infallibility, it follows that the same will happen to the three maverick leaders. Netanyahu will be dethroned, Orban will lose the next election and Putin? Yes, Putin’s hold on power will be weakened by growing social weariness with his patriotic pursuit of untenable betterment. The calls within Russia about when will Putin leave the leadership and who will follow are growing. See this: https://t.me/AlgoraPublishing/1447. It is a sign that if Trump doesn’t pull out a rabbit out of the hat, and soon, the delusement within the US as well as within Russia will only be damaging the protagonists more and more.

And Trump has challenges beyond the usual political divergences. His tariffs-based economics is not going to work and neither his brutal attack on social dissent.

So, are you better off with the anti Globalists? Should you cheer for the Globalists? Or should you cheer for the Trumpists? Just asking.

by Indrajit Samarajiva via https://indi.ca/what-if-theyre-just-stupid/

I try to intelligently analyze White Empire as best I can, but something irks me. What if there is no plan? What if they’re just stupid? What if the simplest answer is that they’re just simpletons? What if they’re just cutting coke with Occam’s Razor, and licking the blade with wild abandon? At this time, a Great Man Theory (GMT) of history won’t do, we need a Great Idiot Theory (GIT).

Theory

Tom Carlyle delivering a different lecture

Great Man Theory comes from a series of lectures by Thomas Carlyle from 1840, called On Heroes. It’s an erudite, expansive work, covering everyone from the Prophet Muhammad to Shakespeare to Napoleon Bonaparte. Most people reduce Carlyle to out of context quotes (in the context of reduced attention spans), and I’m afraid I’m no exception. For our purposes, Carlyle said, “Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.” I would amend just one word. Great Men might mark the top of history, but the bottom is just morons.

Carlyle addresses this. In his section on kings and kingslayers, Carlyle posited a difference between the ‘Ablest Man’ and the ‘Unablest Man’, each emerging cyclically throughout history. As the modern airport novel wisdom goes, “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” Carlyle seems to talk about the American Devolution today, when he talks about the French Revolution of yore,

This is the history of all rebellions, French Revolutions, social explosions in ancient or modern times. You have put the too Unable Man at the head of affairs! The too ignoble, unvaliant, fatuous man. You have forgotten that there is any rule, or natural necessity whatever, of putting the Able Man there. Brick must lie on brick as it may and can. Unable Simulacrum of Ability, quack, in a word, must adjust himself with quack, in all manner of administration of human things;—which accordingly lie unadministered, fermenting into unmeasured masses of failure, of indigent misery: in the outward, and in the inward or spiritual, miserable millions stretch out the hand for their due supply, and it is not there.

The ‘ignoble, unvaliant, fatuous man,’ an administration of quacks, ‘fermenting into unmeasured masses of failure.’ Does this not describe the current situation in parallax? Trump is a revolutionary in the sense of turning things over, and French in the sense that nothing good comes of it. There’s an English saying, cometh the hour, cometh the man, but at this late hour, who’s answering the call but morons and charlatans? As Yeats said, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” There’s also a Chinese saying, 时势造英雄, “the times create their heroes,” but what does this mean in a time of decline? The times also create their zeroes, who drive the ‘miserable millions’ down accordingly.

Critique Of GMT

Via

One critique of GMT comes from Karl Marx, who said, “how absurd is the conception of history held hitherto, which neglects the real relationships and confines itself to high-sounding dramas of princes and states.” Marx describes his alternative, historical materialism, saying,

History is nothing but the succession of the separate generations, each of which exploits the materials, the capital funds, the productive forces handed down to it by all preceding generations, and thus, on the one hand, continues the traditional activity in completely changed circumstances and, on the other, modifies the old circumstances with a completely changed activity. This can be speculatively distorted so that later history is made the goal of earlier history, e.g. the goal ascribed to the discovery of America is to further the eruption of the French Revolution. Thereby history receives its own special aims and becomes “a person rating with other persons” (to wit: “Self-Consciousness, Criticism, the Unique,” etc.), while what is designated with the words “destiny,” “goal,” “germ,” or “idea” of earlier history is nothing more than an abstraction formed from later history, from the active influence which earlier history exercises on later history.

History is thus a palimpsest (a manuscript rubbed out and rewritten), and the medium is the message (as McLuhan said). Personally I have noticed this as America being evil now (something I only recently noticed) reveals that America was alwaysevil (to my shame). I can feel the palimpsest being scrubbed out and overwritten in my brain, though I still can’t spell the word for the life of me. It’s yet such a delightful and descriptive word that I can’t refrain.

Describing historical materialism, Marx says, “It shows that circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances.” But then, aren’t we back where we started? Cometh the man, cometh the hour, only reversing the order. Greater (or lesser) men will always rise (or fall) to the occasion, their personalities providing a violent volatility around the general arc of history. History creates a certain probability for change, but only personality tells us what shape it will take.

Marx views history through production changes and class struggle. Thus feudal production systems produced barons, just as capitalist production produces robber barons. That is, a certain production system leads to the reproduction of certain morons, leading to high drama of princes and states, or CEOs and corporations. In both cases, once you gather enough grain or GDP to sustain an insane inbred population, they do insane inebriated things.

Practice

Aimé Césaire

Pre-industrial European history was largely a bunch of inbred morons doing inane things, culminating Queen Victoria’s grandchildren fighting over their toys (World War I) and smashing everything. There were very few, very incestuous, people making very stupid decisions and chaos ensued. Sound familiar?

Production based on land reproduced landed nobility. In the same way, production based on capital reproduces capitalists. Trump, for example, is a second generation capitalist. He inherited $40 million from his father and could have been just as rich passively investing it. Today, most billionaires are produced this way, through inheritance rather than entrepreneurship. This new class of inherited capitalist holds the same investments, goes to the same schools, wears the same watches, and rapes the same children. A production system of widespread machines has turned into a reproduction system of insular morons.

Today the 50 richest Americans hold nearly as much wealth as the bottom 50%. Just a few families control America, and they all know each other. Given that wealth is legally speech in America these people can buy both sides of the 2% spread that divides elections and continue the party, whatever the party. Duopoly is even better than monopoly because it gives you plausible deniability. As Julius Nyerere said, “The United States is also a one-party state, but with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.”

Just as bankers and the merchant class displaced European nobility, cash is king in America. American politicians are not public but private servants, they’re answerable to the ‘donor class’, because America has legalized bribery. Western politicians are just hired hands, accountable to rich shareholders, not poor voters. Very few people behind the scenes actually run the White Empire, and they’re hardly people. Marx called them “capital personified and endowed with consciousness and a will.” This private jet-set is the new unlanded ignobility.

In this way material conditions lead us to the “high-sounding dramas of princes and states” all over again. The reproduction and concentration of capital leads to the reproduction and concentration of capitalists, becoming successively more moronic over degenerating generations. Thus we end up back in the age of mad kings doing mad tings, only under different production systems.

Thus the question is not really what Trump produces but what produces a Trump. What system would elevate such an “ignoble, unvaliant, fatuous man” to power? What leads to “forgetting that there is any rule, or natural necessity whatever, of putting the Able Man there”? It is, in fact, an unable system that calls out for an unable man, to represent it. As Aimé Césaire said, “a civilization which is morally diseased, which irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one denial to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment.”

Evil Is Stupid In The Long Run

Frank Sinatra painting a clown for some reason

Even more pointless than looking for intelligence in this stupidity is looking for morality, but let’s do it, because I think evil and stupid are the same thing, just with a timing difference. If you look at any moral advice it is really just good advice, in the long run. Evil is stupid in the long run, especially if you consider the hereafter (though in the meantime it can be fun). If you cheat in business, you’re less likely to be trusted, you make your own life harder. If you cheat on your wife, you have a more stressful life, you wreck your own home. Of course, people ‘get away’ with cheating all the time, but how far do they get, and how often do they fall? Doing evil is simply more risky in the long-run, AKA stupid, especially considering the hereafter, as you should.

In this way, colonialism was always stupid in the long run, a global minority trying to cheat and steal from the global majority was always going to go Global South at some point. There’s simply more of us, and technology moves around. While they did get away with colonialism for centuries, that was just a blink of the historical eye, and that eye is opening. Climate collapse, Palestinian liberation, Chinese independence, these are all part of the same reckoning. When Trump responds to this with traditional western racism, it appears stupid, but remember that everything Trump is doing was once conventional wisdom.

As Ernest Renan from the no-good French said (via Césaire), “The regeneration of the inferior or degenerate races by the superior races is part of the providential order of things for humanity… Nature has made a race of workers, the Chinese race, who have wonderful manual dexterity and almost no sense of honor; govern them with justice, levying from them, in return for the blessing of such a government, an ample allowance for the conquering race, and they will be satisfied.” Trump is called a moron for trying to extort the Chinese today, but it was (and is) common continental sentiment to treat the this way.

Césaire introduced this Renan saying, “Who is speaking? I am ashamed to say it: it is the Western humanist, the “idealist” philosopher… “Hitler? Rosenberg? No, Renan.” White people blame racism on their ignorant poors, but this ideology was written by their elites long before. Modern racists are simply regurgitating the blood meal of past centuries. People say Trump can’t do this, but no less than Immanuel Kant says that he should. Kant said, “the race of the whites contains all talents and motives in itself” (so tariff everybody else into oblivion).

Even though Trump’s ghostwriter Tony Schwartz said, “I seriously doubt that Trump has ever read a book straight through in his adult life,” Trump nonetheless channels the id of imperialist thought unconsciously. As John Maynard Keynes said, “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.” In this way, Trump is simply distilling the jist of western thought, which is that the west is the best and everybody else can eat shit. Trump’s frenzy really expresses the whole of western philosophy, which claims the whole category of philosophy, and deports everything else to departments on the periphery.

But Trump comes too late to avert his fate. While fate might lead the willing (re: Seneca) it drags the unwilling, and Trump is dragging America to the fate it deserves more rapidly than intended. This is one of those moments when a Great Idiot takes the reins of a probable decline and yanks it downwards into a certainty. As Césaire said. “At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. At the end of formal humanism and philosophic renunciation, there is Hitler.” You can sense that America is eager to outlive its day, having voted for the man twice. And so they go out in the traditional American white man way, murder-suicide of the whole family.

Trump is the heir to an inheritance that’s already been spent. He’s the hair combed over a baldness that’s already apparent. He’s the last furious attempt to simply eat the palimpsest of history before it’s overwritten by present rebellions. White Empire was always evil but only now does it appear stupid, as it’s ending. Evil is just stupid in the long run and this is the long run. As Frank Sinatra sang, send in the clowns, don’t bother, they’re here.

He said the “majority” of those demands represent “direct governmental regulation of the intellectual conditions at Harvard.”

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

Harvard University’s professors sued the Trump administration on April 11 after it threatened to withhold nearly $9 billion in grants and contracts if the university fails to adopt the administration’s required structural changes.

The Harvard faculty chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) filed a lawsuit alleging that the administration’s action represents an “unlawful and unprecedented misuse of federal funding and civil rights enforcement authority to undermine academic freedom and free speech” on a university’s campus.

According to the court filing, the university received a letter from the administration on April 3 outlining the “non-exhaustive preconditions” it must meet in order to keep its government funding, following an investigation into the university’s failures to address anti-Semitism on campus.

Among the requirements are a review of programs that fuel anti-Semitic harassment on campus, to “improve viewpoint diversity, and end ideological capture” within the university. Harvard was also required to enact a mask ban and eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, according to the lawsuit.

It stated that the administration threatened to terminate at least $255.6 million in contracts and place more than $8.7 billion in multiyear grant commitments to Harvard University and its affiliates under review unless the university agrees to implement the proposed changes.

“Harvard, like all American universities, depends on federal funding to conduct its academic research. Threats like these are an existential ‘gun to the head’ for a university,” the lawsuit states.

The plaintiffs accused the administration of misusing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, an anti-discrimination law that applies to federally funded institutions, to “coerce universities into undermining free speech.”

“These sweeping yet indeterminate demands are not remedies targeting the causes of any determination of noncompliance with federal law. Instead, they overtly seek to impose on Harvard University political views and policy preferences advanced by the Trump administration and commit the University to punishing disfavored speech,” they state.

The professors asked the court to preliminarily and permanently enjoin any further investigation or review of the university’s federal funding. They also requested that it block the administration from using its authority to penalize Harvard over the viewpoints of its members.

“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” said Harvard President Alan Garber in a message.

The Epoch Times reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Harvard University is one of 60 institutions of higher education currently under investigation for allegations of anti-Semitic discrimination and harassment on campus.

Protests erupted across universities in the United States after Israel launched a military operation in the Gaza Strip with the stated goal of eradicating the Hamas terrorist group. The operation was retaliation for Hamas launching a land, sea, and air attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking hostage 251 more. Last spring, pro-Palestinian protesters camped out on campus and, at one point, took over a building.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon has previously urged university leaders to prevent discrimination against Jewish students on campus or risk losing federal funding.

“The Department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite U.S. campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year,” McMahon said in a statement on March 10.

“U.S. colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by U.S. taxpayers. That support is a privilege and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal anti-discrimination laws.”

Harvard University’s professors also filed a motion on April 11 seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent the government from cutting funding while the litigation continues, saying that it would cause “severe irreparable harm” to the university and disrupt its research operations.

“No law in this country permits Trump to suspend billions from universities simply because he doesn’t like the constitutionally protected speech of their students & faculty,” Nikolas Bowie of Harvard’s AAUP said in a statement.

George Carlin the great American Prophet said it best:

“It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you’ve got.

Because the owners, the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now, the BIG owners! The Wealthy… the REAL owners! The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions.

Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice! You have OWNERS! They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls.

They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else….”

To know who the owners are just find out who you cannot criticize.

See more: Today, coincident with D Trump’s Great Tariff Debacle, China announced its Digital Payments Processing system was open for use among about 10 nations , reducing payment costs near-zero and transaction time in seconds! And open to all to join Completely bypassing the SWIFT choke-point game of the elites. https://t.me/AlgoraTelegram/637

Criminals have a different mentality than non-criminals. https://t.me/AlgoraTelegram/636

On August 9, 1999, 25 years ago, Putin was appointed Prime Minister and successor by Yeltsin.

Everyone perceived Putin as yet another technical Prime Minister, a grey mouse who would carry the weight of the people’s hatred of Yeltsin.

And just a few months later, the people of Russia were already in love with Putin.

A few months later, the KGB agents from Putin’s team essentially carried out a coup d’etat and removed a group of oligarchs and foreign agents from power.

A few years later, Putin led the country out of a protracted crisis of statehood, and saved Russia from turmoil. And he raised the people’s standard of living to a level unprecedented in the history of Russia.

And he became a great statesman. But no one knew it then.

ANGRY RANT: 

“If you’re not absolutely disgusted about what’s going on in Gaza, you’re lying to yourself!”

Happy TikToker loses her temper over Gaza!

A wave of pro-Palestine / anti-Israel protests is sweeping the US’s college and university campuses.

In several instances, police have been dispatched to the campus grounds, making hundreds of arrests, despite the protests being completely peaceful.

When the young intellectuals start protesting, that’s a sign that your regime has utterly failed. Almost every major revolution in history started in the universities.

On some U.S. university campuses, the government has deployed snipers on the roofs. Snipers taking aim at pro-Palestine protestors on U.S. university campuses.

by Gilbert Doctorow via gilbertdoctorow.com

Iran’s weekend massive drone, cruise missile and ballistic missile attack on Israel has now been covered in the global media, with the headlines announcing that 99% of the barrage was shot down by Israeli, U.S. and other friendly air defense systems. The question these media pose is what will be the Israeli response, as if that were a matter strictly to be decided by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cabinet.

In fairness, I note that The Financial Times has also published a front page article setting out what it considers to be the Iranian perspective on the attack, namely that it was successful insofar as it demonstrated their country is not shying away from direct military confrontation with Israel and is confidently prepared to prosecute a full scale war if it comes to that. See “We’re crazier than you realize”: Iran delivers its message with attack on Israel. Tehran believes calibrated missile and drone barrage is enough to restore deterrent and bolster image.”

However, the Iranian position is much more nuanced and contains far greater threat not only to Israel but also to the entire United States presence in the region than the FTsuggests. I say this on the basis of an analysis provided on last night’s edition of the Vladimir Solovyov talk show on Russian state television by a regular panelist, Semyon Arkadievich Bagdasarov, who is a leading Russian specialist on the region.

For those who wish to see and hear Bagdasarov’s 14 minutes on air in the original Russian, the link is

https://all-make.su/22174-vecher-s-solovyovym-14-04-2024/ minutes: 27 – 41.

In what follows I offer a brief biographical sketch of Bagdasarov so that the seriousness of his remarks can be better appreciated. Then I will summarize what he said on air.

Aged 69, Bagdasarov was born in Central Asia in the Ferghana Valley, which passes through Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Accordingly, he has the proper birthright to his position since 2014 as director of the think tank called the Center for the Study of the Countries of the Near East and Central Asia. However, Bagdasarov reached this academic plateau after passing through a succession of military and civilian government posts, including the 5 years starting in 2007 as a Duma member from the ‘For a Just Russia opposition party of Sergei Mironov, which might be described as slightly to the Left of the ruling United Russia party.

Bagdasarov’s professional education was in a military academy and he ultimately retired with the rank of colonel. He then moved into government service first at the regional level and then as an expert to the Duma, to which, as I said above, he was later elected.

In line with what the FT article has said, Bagdasarov calls the Iranian attack on Israel a limited strike intended as a warning, but also yielding both specific tactical and strategic results.

On the tactical side, the swarming of drones was intended to activate the Iron Dome and other levels of Israeli air defense and to reveal the location of their component parts as well as to deplete the Israeli stock of relevant missiles.

Per Bagdasarov, Israeli claims to have shot down 99% of the incoming barrage should be taken with a grain of salt. The Iranians’ key targets in the attack were the Israeli air force base in the south of the country from which the Israeli strike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus was launched two weeks ago and a military intelligence compound which had prepared that deadly strike. The actual extent of damage from Iranian missiles remains to be evaluated.

Bagdasarov explains that the Iranian attack was ‘limited’ because it consisted of rather slow moving drones and of missiles with small warheads. These were not Iran’s most advanced and lethal attack materiel, which has been held in reserve for any possible Round Two.

How many drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles does Iran have? Bagdasarov says no one knows exactly but it may well be 10,000 or more and includes several hundred highly advanced missiles which also have multiple warheads and so are very difficult to defend against. Over the past 20 years, Iran has bet its defense budget on missiles and drones, and it has a large-scale serial production of both. Meanwhile, Iran’s regional allies also have large stocks of these weapons, some of which are also fairly sophisticated. In particular, Hizbollah in Lebanon may have 1500 high quality missiles in its arsenal.

At the strategic level, Iran demonstrated its ability to coordinate a missile and drone attack on Israel with its regional proxies so as to maximize the threat coming from all directions.

Iran used the attack to achieve a political and military objective that has long eluded it. Teheran has now issued threats against Persian Gulf states to bomb any and all that allow the Americans to use their air space or otherwise facilitate Israel’s possible revenge attack on Iran from their territories. These states all fear a war and have now agreed to Iran’s demand. In effect, this negates decades of U.S. unchallenged domination in the Gulf.

Iran has specifically threatened the U.S. regional command in Qatar and the base of the 5th fleet in Bahrain.

The latter point is reflected in Biden’s latest urging restraint on Israel. Washington has understood that its forces in the region are now hostage to whatever Netanyahu may do against Iran as follow-up to this weekend’s barrage.

Furthermore, at the threat level, Iran has a still unused but clearly visible ace in the hole: its ability at will to blockade the Straits of Hormuz and thereby cut off nearly all export shipments of gas and oil from the region. The Straits are just 50 km wide and are easily controlled by Iran’s anti-ship missiles ashore. Such a closure would create havoc on global energy markets. We were reminded of Iran’s dominant position there several days ago when they captured a container ship owned by an Israeli millionaire which was traveling through and directed it to their own coast.

And what about Israel’s alleged plans to attack Iran’s nuclear installations? Bagdasarov insists that this is an impossible objective. Firstly, because the Iranian nuclear program is distributed among 200 centers spread across the vast country and many of these locations are in desert areas buried under 40 meters of sand. The Israelis might only destroy a couple of the best known nuclear centers. Secondly, because to reach their targets in Iran, the Israeli jets would require in-air refueling by American tankers, and it is scarcely credible that Biden will give his consent considering how the U.S. regional bases are under threat.

Iran fired this time only on military objects, but if they use not 300 but 10,000 missiles and drones then Israel will be obliterated. Hizbollah alone have 1,500 advanced missiles. Iran surely has real missiles and drones that are still more powerful. No one knows exactly how many. Over the past 20 years Iran placed its bets on drones and missiles. In the assortment, they have some very sophisticated multi warhead missiles that are unstoppable.

Later in the program (at 1 hour 36 minutes) a military commentator who is a frequent panelist on the Solovyov show, Lt General (retired), Yevgeny Buzhinsky, head of the Center of Applied Military Research of Moscow State University, seconded the estimation of Bagdasarov that this was just a warning, a PR exercise by Iran. As for the shoot-down, he noted that with its S400 and other systems Russia has probably the best air defense in the world, and yet they strain to reach the 99% interception that Israel has blithely claimed.

As host Vladimir Solovyov commented at the opening of the program, the principal fact is that the Iranians did it. They spat on the U.S. and its allies, and they just did what they believed was necessary. In consequence the world ‘built on rules’ counts for nothing.

Bishop Mari Emmanuel was stabbed live in Wakeley, Sydney while delivering his sermon.

Bishop Mari Emmanuel was preaching at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley in Sydney’s west on Monday just after 7pm when a man dressed in black walked up to the altar and allegedly stabbed him multiple times.