Thursday 19th March 2026

[refitman]

Morning all.

[Frog222]

Farage also produced a video saying “I am told you must invest in Dogecoin” – a memecoin favoured by Elon Musk.
A month later, Farage urged viewers to sell Dogecoin and instead invest in Gabecoin, which like Dogecoin is based on an image of a dog.
The Guardian analysed historical price data for the six cryptocurrencies referenced by Farage for which data is available. All of them have lost value since he made a Cameo clip about them.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng- ... d-in-value



That is very small-time snake-oil selling, but what on earth is the Electoral Commisson up to on ignoring crypto donations ?????

[Frog222]

“Iran events show that Russia can’t rely on any diplomatic agreements with the US” -



Internet access restored to parts of Moscow, but only for government sites ...

[Frog222]

Rentagob --

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Why am I not surprised that freak James Orr has joined Reform, and why am I equally lacking in amazement that the BBC have him on to represent them despite him being elected by absolutely nobody.

[Frog222]

Shortly before Putin's Invasion I watched a DW Youtube on the growing Ukrainian IT sector, how they were rapidly taking a lot of business away from India ...



Here is why --

""Essentially, Ukraine is the world’s first nation-state to become a hyper-scaler, a tech term applied to Amazon, Google, and Meta because they provide cloud service, computing, and storage at “enterprise scale” and employ armies of tech experts.

Zelensky and his team accomplished this because Ukraine’s tech sector is large and because, even though he is a lawyer and entertainer, his father is a famous computer scientist and his mother an engineer. He understands the importance of technology and science.

In fact, Ukraine is a brainy country and was ahead of the curve in technological capability during the Soviet Era. After it declared independence in 1991, it retained an educational system that emphasized “hard sciences and maths,” and its tech sector expanded. In 2019, Ukraine’s first truly fair elections took place, and Zelensky won by a landslide on a platform of fighting corruption, Russian influences, and rebuilding a military that had been degraded by Moscow. That year, he created the world’s first Ministry of Digital Transformation, which was run by expert Mykhailo Federov. For years, the focus has been on digitizing government services and integrating AI and drones into the Ukrainian military. As a result, Ukraine has staved off Russia but also reinvented warfare. In 2026, Federov became Minister of Defence.""
https://dianefrancis.substack.com/p/ukraine-has-cards

-----------------------

Some exaggeration, but not that much

[refitman]

How to make friends and influence people

[Frog222]

The written reporting of that was so cringe, that I hadn't watched it before

Contrast below --
https://bsky.app/profile/snarkysteff.bs ... gj3mqdnk2m

On Saturday I began reading a book that had been hanging around a decade or
two , as an antidote to TrumpWar doomscrolling !

Heavy going but brightens up halfway through as it transpires that to get into the European War, America had to be attacked first,

so FDR organised exactly that .

( Gore Vidal The Golden Age 2000 )

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Question Time came tonight from Croydon.

For Labour we had Wes Streeting. Say what you like about Wes (and there's a lot to say, much of it unflattering), but if there's one thing he's good at it's appearing on this programme. Given the state Labour are in for Wes to get two rounds of applause is a minor miracle. The first for refusing to blindly follow Trump to war, and the second for defending the NHS. Shooting fish in a barrel you may say, and while
in all fairness he was helped by the right wing opposition on the panel being an absolute clown show Wes blew through the sceptical silence other Labour MPs have faced and demonstrated his credentials for the upcoming leadership contest for all to see. God help us all.

For the Tories we had Helen Whately. Unless you witness Helen in full flow it's hard to understand just how preposterously stupid she is. She's like a quarrelsome gerbil with the memory of a fruit fly. Witnessing her spewing forth an almost surreally nonsensical word salad while trying to defend Badenoch's various contradictory stances on joining Trump's war was quite something to behold. She appeared genuinely deranged. Then later, during a question on energy bills, after it had been established factually (once again) that drilling in the North Sea wouldn't bring down our bills due to the oil and gas being sold on the open market guess what Helen suggested? It was as if she'd missed the previous 10 minutes of the debate, like she'd totally zoned out. If in some alternative universe she was my friend I'd be having concerned words with her about having her gerbil brain checked out. But if you think Helen was bad...

For Reform we had James Orr. James is professor of philosophy (of religion) at Oxford. Reform see him and Goodwin as the intellectuals of the party. James is openly Islamophobic and wants to set women's rights back at least to the 17'th century. So you'll be pleased to hear James made an absolute tit of himself tonight. Like gerbil brain above James' contortions while trying to defend Farage's paradoxical positions on joining Trump's war before realising he'd judged the public mood disastrously badly were embarrassingly poor, especially for an Oxford professor of philosophy (of religion). And delightfully Bruce wouldn't let him off the hook, she kept repeating Farage's statements and asked the audience if James' incoherent drivel made any sense. To which they replied in the negative with a smattering of sniggers. The rest of the hour didn't go any better for him. Seriously though, this guy is paid by Oxford, represents Oxford, putting aside his political views what's surely unforgivable is that a professor of philosophy (of religion) demonstrated the debating skills of a surly 12 year old.

For the Greens we had Caroline Lucas. Caroline was her usual splendid self, other than Wes she was the only panellist to get any applause, for slagging off Trump and telling it like it is when it comes to renewables and our energy security. She delighted in winding up James Orr, even telling him she knew what he was going to say before he said it, which he promptly did. I know Polanski has been bringing in more punters, and I've nothing against the guy, but as ever it was a pleasure to watch a principled woman doing her thing.

For the Lib Dems we had Josh Babarinde. Josh tried his best on a five person panel but he always seemed to be called on last as an afterthought. Not his fault but maybe if he'd thrown himself into the fray rather than sitting quite and polite he'd have made more of an impression. Don't listen to your parents or your teachers kids. If you want to get ahead in life as an influencer or politician be prepared to shout over everyone and be a dickhead.

[refitman]

and the second for defending the NHS

Pretty brazen of him, considering his main focus is flogging off bit of it to Serco, Palantir et al.

Cheers for the review Sky.