Now -- will somebody pleasexplain this Skripal and Navalny stuff?

As you know I'm a huge fan of the Savant, but am surprised to hear him talking about the KGB as in that 1st para. He's certainly right about ameriKan idiocy, huh.

Now -- will somebody pleasexplain this Skripal and Navalny stuff?

He was deliberately exaggerating the KGB's mastery. If the KGB and Soviet society had been as efficient as the Germans, no one would have survived it.

Skripal and Navalny are both rather unimportant opponents of the Russian government (Skripal was a double agent spy back in the 1990s) and a Putin political opponent (Navalny). Both became mysteriously sick with what was claimed to be novichok, a deadly poison. By some miracle both survived the poisoning. The Russian government was blamed in both cases.

The whole blame-the-Russians ploy is laughably improbable for two reasons.

Maybe you shoulda kept reading?

I say we should value opponents of Moscow and Putin, because Moscow and Putin are bad news. I know I'm the only person in the write wing saying such things, but I'm also documenting them month on month and year on year, online and in a print newspaper. I think it's rather foolish to treat the KGB as a historical joke when it was Puttinsky's first career. Wikid:

'After breaking away from Georgia in the early 1990s with Russian help, the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia established its own KGB (keeping this unreformed name).[3] In addition, the Republic of Belarus has also established its own national security agency, the State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus, the name and acronym of which are identical to those of the former Soviet KGB.'

it'still an extremely strange article, a mass of unanswered questions. What did happen to the Skripals (pl.) and Navalny, should we not give a hoot (I do), is it just spy-vs-spy biznis as usual. I guess that's Sav's position?

For anyone to survive novichok is unlikely yet these 3 did. And these victims are of no use to Putin.

Skripal, however, was of use to Gina Haspel.

CIA director used fake Skripal incident photos to manipulate Trump

Skripal gave up spying in the early 2000s and Navalny is as unlikely to harm Putin as whoever the Libertarian presidential candidate is to do damage to Trump.

If Navalny was poisoned, ... elsewhere for the motive

So all the poisoning stuff was completely made up? If Trump only hada braaaaaaaain.....

US policy is to prevent NordStream 2 from supplying Germany, so Trump signed on to the scheme. Whether he knows the truth, we couldn't say--he just might have taken the CIAs word for it.

Why doesn't DC want NS2 supplying Germany?

The US not only wants to sell her own fracking gas – which in addition of violating Germany’s environmental rules – is also much more expensive than Russian LNG. Equally or more important – Washington wants to drive yet another wedge between Germany and Russia.

Equally or more important – Washington wants to drive yet another wedge between Germany and Russia.

And Russia can use their natural gas as a lever against Germany and shut off the spigot. But under what circumstances would they do that? ;)

And Russia can use their natural gas as a lever against Germany and shut off the spigot. But under what circumstances would they do that? ;)

If the Germans didn't pay their bill. Happened with Ukraine.

If Germany doesn't want to become a Soviet satellite when ameriKa finally, really falls.

All actions in Europe and Russia are based on commerce. Commercial pressure can be applied by Russia at any time using the price mechanism of their natural gas.

Of course there is the world market price of natural gas that are traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. ;)

America's gas is dangerous to deliver as LNG.

Is it really so dangerous to deliver as LNG? Please tell us how so? ;)

In Chicago the natural gas infrastructure is so old that when they install a gas appliance it must have a drip leg in the black pipe just before it goes into the appliance. The drip leg catches moisture that is in the gas which precipitates out as it warms up to room temperature. ;)

AP: LNG Tanker Attack Would Be Devastating

https://www.foxnews.com/story/ap-lng-tanker-attack-would-be-devastating

Israel had to move facilities in their Haifa port when Hezbollah got more accurate medium range rockets.

Muslims just beheaded a school teacher in Paris so they ought not to take risks.

Muslims just beheaded a school teacher in Paris

In France the Muslims said, "They invited us to come in." :-/

Putin is certainly smarter than that. He's very pragmatic and clever. You don't want to play chess against Putin.

It makes far more sense that the Skripal poisoning was carried out by a government that wanted Russia to be framed and damaged in the international community, just as happened. A country that was upset with Russia at the time.

At the time, Russia was intervening militarily in Syria attacking ISIS and driving back rebel forces. That's about the only thing they were involved with. So who would have been most upset with Russia's intervention in favor of Assad AND had the capability to create or recreate this chem weapon AND had the audacity to actually pull off the attack AND wouldn't care about the well being of the Skripals?

There's also the issue of Russian trust in spy exchanges being compromised. Who would want to trade spies with Russia if Russia is just going to off the spies they trade away later on? In any event, if Russia was going to off them, they could do it without releasing chemical weapons on the general public in a foreign country, which is an act of war.

Yes, the UK security blaming Russia for the attack simply because it was using a Russian created chem weapon is detective work worthy of Barney Fife.

Muslims just beheaded a school teacher in Paris so they ought not to take risks.

You'd think so, wouldn't you?

But then these idiots don't coordinate tactics that way.

At any rate, Hezbollah is Shia and the headchoppers are no doubt a Sunni outfit. Chalk and cheese. They hate and fear each other more than they do Israel.

In one way that's a blessing. From another angle, they're like all pests - stubborn and destructive competitors.

All actions in Europe and Russia

Not now that they're jewed!