News Briefs To Start A Busy Week
Admin: Today we have cataract surgery for the second eye. Tomorrow follow up appointment. Wednesday mental health/grampa day.
As in any resource state, the regions that seem of secondary importance actually pay most of the bills. That is why Ottawa is playing with fire by polarising the country like they are. They may end up a broke rump state.
Important to remember that this was a single missile and there was something like 2000 km of advance notice:
There it is. Both THAAD and Arrow failed to take down a missile heading for the country’s main airport. Air defence is completely us
eless against this technology. Military planners should stop coping and just deal with this new reality.
It is becoming extremely clear that air defence is basically useless against modern missile technology. The Houthi missiles are likely 10-20 years behind Russian and Chinese gear and a single one can get through layered Western air defence. It’s a new world
Philip Pilkington @philippilk
The meltdown of private credit begins. How much of high housing valuations were being driven by private credit? We may be about to find out!
Is this supposed to hurt Russia?
Russian oil is some of the cheapest oil to extract in the world. Scott Ritter claims the cost is as little as $9/barrel. This is why Russia can handle this. KSA, not so much. PP thinks there’s a deal in this with Russia. We shall see.
Philip Pilkington @philippilk
Oil is below $60 a barrel but Russia is still agreeing to output increases. The biggest beneficiary of this by far is the Trump administration. Very likely some sort of deal was struck. 
2:07 AM · May 5, 2025
UK shakeup coming? The old order under assault:
Stats for Lefties @LeftieStats
CONFIRMED | Keir Starmer suffered worst defeat of any new PM on record, losing 65% of Labour's seats. In 1977, just two years before being evicted from power, Labour lost 48% of the council seats it was defending. Starmer just lost a whopping **65%**
Romanian election: Interesting what the Eurocrats can and cannot tolerate. ‘Cynicism’ hardly begins to describe it. Is there something similar underlying US politics?
Philip Pilkington @philippilk
The European establishment is far more willing to stomach intra-European ethnic tensions than dissent on diktats from Brussels. Europe is already postliberal - the only question now is what sort of postliberalism it wants.
Thomas Fazi @battleforeurope
There’s a reason Simion was allowed to run — unlike Georgescu. While Simion holds far more radical positions than Georgescu on issues such as the rights of ethnic minorities in Romania — positions that arguably justify the “far-right” label — he aligns closely with the establishment on matters that truly count: the EU, NATO and the proxy war in Ukraine. In many ways, he is Romania’s version of Giorgia Meloni — whom he openly admires.
This exposes just how disingenuous the establishment’s fear-mongering about the “far right” really is. The label is weaponised to discredit anyone who challenges the prevailing order, yet the very same establishment is happy to embrace genuine far-right figures — as long as they remain loyal on economic and geopolitical fundamentals.
Surprising analysis of Australia’s elections. Their version of Rino’s threw the election:
https://open.substack.com/pub/nationfirst/p/the-sabotage-of-peter-dutton?
An explanation of what Farage is doing. Sounds similar to the Romanian eu acceptable candidate:
“ he spent his political career ruthlessly purging first UKIP, and this year, Reform UK, of anyone who might upset this much desired image”
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/my-tcw-week-in-review-is-the-tory-beast-dead-or-just-rebirthed/
Good luck with the surgery, Mark. On the Israel front, I guess the Thaads couldn't stop the Thuuds.