Interesting insights on firearms in Ukraine

Quote:On 15 March, the United States returned to launching significant airstrikes aimed at degrading the Houthis’ military capabilities and bolstering freedom of navigation through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. President Donald Trump, in comments on social media, identified Iran as continuing to enable Houthi attacks.

Trump’s comments play into a long-standing debate on the extent to which the Houthis operate as an instrument of Iranian policy. While some describe the group as a mere proxy, reliant on Iranian weapons transfers, others emphasise its political autonomy and capacity for local arms production. Houthi command and decision-making structures remain opaque, making it difficult to assess the degree of political and operational influence Iran exerts. However, the relatively well-documented nature of the Houthi missile and uninhabited-aerial-vehicle (UAV) arsenal, employed in attacks against Israel and in the anti-shipping campaign in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, offers insight into the material dimension of the relationship.



Going ballistic
Iran has a long-standing pattern of transferring complete missile and rocket systems to non-state partners and also of enabling localised production among these groups. Since at least the late 2000s, Tehran has supported domestic manufacturing by designing systems tailored for local assembly and providing technical training, production machinery, and key components such as guidance kits and specialised parts. These have been documented in Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.

In the case of the Houthis, United Nations investigations into recovered missile remnants and seized propellant-precursor materials provide evidence that Iran has transferred missile-production technology.


The complexity of missile manufacturing, however, increases significantly with range and size. Relatively simple artillery rockets and close-range ballistic missiles (CRBM, which have a range of only 50–300 kilometres) can be produced with limited industrial capacity, as shown by Palestinian groups in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon. Medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs), by comparison, are complex systems produced only by a handful of states that have the requisite defence-industrial base.

This divergence appears to be reflected in the composition of the Houthi missile inventory. At least some of the group’s CRBMs, with ranges of up to 200 km, are probably manufactured domestically, though critical components, including guidance systems, are probably still sourced from Iran. These could include close-range anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM) such as the Faleq, Mayun and al-Bahr al-Ahmar. Notably, the Mouhit ASBM appears to be a conversion of a legacy RS-SA-2 (S-75 Dvina) surface-to-air missile system, originally a Soviet design, repurposed with Iranian guidance technology.

Medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) used for strikes against Israel, however, are almost certainly supplied directly by Iran. Both the solid-propellant MRBMs used by the Houthis, the Palestine 1 and 2 (derivatives of the Iranian Kheibar Shekan or Fattah) and their liquid-propellant MRBMs such as the Zulfiqar (a rebranded Iranian Rezvan) appear too complex for local Yemeni production.


The status of short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM, which have a range of 300–1,000 km) such as the Iranian Fateh-110, anti-ship variants of which have been employed in the Red Sea, is less clear. These systems are more complex than short-range artillery rockets but remain less sophisticated than MRBMs. Iran has previously sought to localise production of the Fateh-110 for Hizbullah in Syria, potentially establishing a precedent. While it remains more likely that the Houthis are importing these missiles ready-made, partial local production cannot be ruled out.

Cruise control

While the Houthis possess some local manufacturing capacity for ballistic missiles, land-attack and anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) appear to be supplied entirely by Iran. Critically, the group is not assessed to have the capability to produce the small turbojet engines required for these systems, nor the active radar-homing seekers used in anti-ship variants. Although it cannot be ruled out that the Houthis have begun producing certain simpler components of the Quds (Paveh) land-attack cruise missile, such as composite airframe parts, seizures related to ASCMs have involved complete systems shipped in disassembled form, with Yemen-based activity limited to final assembly.

UAVs

Independent local-production capabilities appear most advanced in the domain of simple UAVs. In particular, the Sammad 3 (KAS-04) one-way attack UAV (OWA-UAV), representing the low-tech end of Iran’s long-range OWA-UAV portfolio, has been used on a large scale in land-attack operations against Israel and, in loitering variants, against maritime targets in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Interviews with Western officials, as well as the low quality of manufacturing observed on recovered examples, strongly indicate that these are manufactured inside Yemen.

While key components related to guidance, control and propulsion even for simpler UAVs cannot be produced domestically, many of these are commercially available, enabling the Houthis to procure them independently from Iran where necessary. The use of Chinese-made DLE-170 engines by the Sammad 3 is one such example. Nevertheless, previously recovered Sammad airframes have also included Iranian-made components, such as gyroscopes.

More advanced one-way attack UAVs in Houthi service, such as the Shahed-131, Shahed-136 and long-range Yaffa, incorporate a higher proportion of Iranian-supplied systems. These include more powerful engines that are less accessible on the open market and, in the case of the Shahed series, more complex composite-airframe components.




Conclusion

Despite incremental advances in domestic arms production, particularly in UAVs and CRBMs, the Houthis remain dependent on Iran for key technologies and advanced capabilities. While Tehran’s support has, in some areas, evolved from the direct provision of complete systems to enabling localised manufacturing, it remains a critical enabler of Houthi military activity. The group is probably capable of independent innovation in tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs), and of producing simpler UAV technology. However, Yemen’s limited industrial base and overall development constraints are almost certainly placing significant limits on the local production and further advancement of more complex systems, including MRBMs and cruise missiles. Ongoing US strikes, which are known to be targeting Houthi production sites, are expected to further complicate efforts to expand domestic production of more advanced systems.

Because wheels are a bit 20th Century Kawasaki feel the future of personal transport is legs , they've served us well enough so why not the our 21st Century transport , the Kawasaki Corleo is the first ... erm , step , toward our own mechanised horse dog thing.


It's so cute , hope you can make it sit up and beg !

This is an update on the helicopter crash which killed 6 people on April 10, 2025. I have hundreds if not 1000s of hours flying a Bell 206 Jet Ranger and if maintained they are a great helicopter IMO. For this pilot to cause mask bumping and have the main rotor cut the tailboom off will be a mystery to me as it would take a massive abrupt control input to manage such a feat. 

In such a situation the Helicopter becomes a non-flying brick and does not have the aerodynamics of even a lawn dart. Bad but quick way to go... Sorry for the family RIP

I first got into Ghost around 2013 and have watched with interest as Papa's came and went , the new album "Skeletá" from which "Lachryma" is the second single introduces us properly to Papa V Perpetua who, it must be said , seems is a bit Vampiric.

A quick search on google tells me Lachryma is watering of the eyes.



The first single released a month ago and called "Satanized" gives a back story to the second and for me became a bit of an earworm , not a bad thing because I really like "Satanized".


Tobias Forge is one of the best things to happen in music for years in my opinion , a true artist, I look forward to seeing where he goes with Papa V.

Mount Spurr in Alaska is active

reported in the Daily Mail but they have so many bells and whistles I don't want to linque.
will add a better link later if I can find one.

Quote:April 9, 2025 / Joseph P. Farrell

About a decade ago  - 2015-2016 to be precise - you might recall that I was blogging a lot about Germany's attempt to repatriate its gold. In fact, if you go to the search engine on the front page of this website and just search for "German gold" all sorts of my blogs about the subject will pop up. There are so many they are too numerous to list here. For those who may not remember,  or who may have become regular readers of this website since then, Germany was then attempting to repatriate its gold from western reserve banks that held large stocks of that country's gold reserves, estimated to be the second largest holdings in the world after the USA's.

The gold being targeted for repatriation was about a third of that country's holdings in Paris, in London (in the Bank of England) and in the New York Federal Reserve vaults.  As the story developed, Germany did indeed repatriate some of that gold, but then suspicions began to emerge in the press - for reasons never entirely made clear - that the gold repatriated may not have been of assay quality but less-than-pure coin melt gold, and demands began to surface in the independent German media for an audit and full accounting of the gold thus repatriated. This the Bundesbank never really managed to do, issuing a few unsatisfactory reports, and there the matter fizzled and sizzled until, eventually, the story was dropped.

But now it is back, or rather, echoes of it are back, because some in Germany want to repatriate that country's gold reserves held by the USA.  Here's that story shared by S.C.G. (with our thanks);

Germany’s Conservatives Sound the Alarm Over Gold Reserves in the US Germany keeps over €100 billion worth of gold reserves in the New York Federal Reserve

The article puts this most  recent call for the return of Germany's gold precisely in the context of of the attempts to do so about a decade ago:

Quote:According to a report published by The Telegraph, Germany is considering removing an enormous stockpile of gold from a vault in New York over worries about Donald Trump’s unpredictable policies.

For decades, Berlin has stashed 1,200 tons of its famous gold reserves, the second largest on the planet after those of the United States, in a vault deep underground at the US Federal Reserve in Manhattan.


Now, senior figures from the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, which is set to lead the next German government, have discussed removing it from New York because of concerns that Washington is no longer a reliable partner, the Bild newspaper has reported.


“Of course, the question has arisen again,” Marco Wanderwitz, a former German government minister who gave up his CDU seat in the Bundestag this year, told Bild.

According to The Telegraph, Wanderwitz has long advocated for a policy that would allow German officials to regularly inspect the gold – or for withdrawing it completely.

He has previously lobbied to visit the gold reserves and personally inspect them, but his request was rejected in 2012.

Germany’s riches were earned after World War Two, when exports surged resulting in large trade surpluses with other nations.

These surpluses were converted into gold under the Bretton Woods system.


Markus Ferber, a member of the European Parliament for the CDU, said that he was also in favour of German officials being allowed to personally inspect the bullion.

“I demand regular checks of Germany’s gold reserves. Official representatives of the Bundesbank must personally count the bars and document their results,” he said.

In other words, some German leaders want a full accounting of the gold, and that requires full access to it, which, by implication, they are not getting, and hence, they want the gold physically returned to German soil, not stashed in a vault in the New York Federal Reserve, which, as regular readers here know, has a bad habit of misplacing Germany's gold, because it did so in 1928 during the visit of Germany's Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht to New York.  If you do not know the story, it is briefly recorded in Schacht's personal memoirs written after World War Two. The governor of the New York Federal Reserve gave Schacht a tour of the gold vaults of the bank. Schacht asked to see Germany's gold, and the staff went off in search of it, and came back with a rather unsettling report: they could not find Germany's gold! Schacht, ever one to drop subtle messages and hints, records that he smiled at the New York Federal Reserve governor Mr. Strong, and said simply, "That's ok, I know you're good for it." Nod nod, wink wink.

So problems in the New York Federal Reserve with Germany's gold are nothing new. In fact, they're now about a whole century old (Schacht reports that the incident occurred in 1928). Now we have an American president who is imposing tariffs on Europe, including Germany, and in such a system, gold clearing is a standard component. And the same administration also has been making noises about a full audit of the American gold reserves alleged to be in Fort Knox.

I say alleged, because no one knows for certain if there is, indeed, any gold actually there, and if there is, what quality it is, since no audit has ever really been done. There was a so-called audit back in the early 1970s, but as anyone who has researched that incident will inform you, that was a highly questionable audit, for the "auditors" were not permitted to select any vault at random, but had to assay the bars in a vault pre-selected for them, and so on. As far as the other vaults were concerned, they could have been completely empty, and no one on the "audit" team would have been the wiser.

So stop and ponder what we have: at the beginning of the German gold story arc, we have a statement by the president of the German Reichsbank that in 1928, the New York Federal Reserve could not locate Germany's gold, and his own statement that he knew the American bank was "good for it," which is a nice polite banker's way of saying that he knew that Germany's gold had been re-hypothecated to other use. At the end of this story arc, we have inadequate audits of Fort Knox, reimposition of tariffs on Europe by the USA, calls for a real audit of Fort Knox, and all of a sudden, the same German leaders as demanded the repatriation of some of that country's gold a decade ago reasserting the same demand in the current 'geopolifinancial" context. (I coined the term "geopolifinancial" in my upcoming book TheRialto In Richmond Reconstructed as a means to show the tight interplay of the deep states, deep events, geopolitics, and deep finance in the post-Civil War period in the USA.)

So what does all of this add up to?

My high octane speculation of the day is that someone in Germany knows that all the talk globally about a return to "sound money" that is "bullion backed" - and especially all that talk about "bullion-backed" electronic transfer systems and bullion backed crypto-"currencies" and so on - is codswallop and bilge water. The whole system has become an inverted pyramid, standing on the point of bullion, and expanding (or rather, ballooning) upward to a massive system with too much paper, much of it very bad (remember all those derivatives no one is talking about any more?).

Under a "sound money" scheme, one can try to redeem all that paper at par - a daunting task because there's not enough bullion, silver or gold, on the entire planet to do so, necessitating that we go out and seize one of those mineral-rich asteroids to be able to cover all that bad paper (or at least, claim that we've grabbed one of those asteroids), or one can revalue all that paper so the current bullion reserves are adequate. But the bottom line is, to do either, one must have physical possession of the bullion. Someone would appear to be wanting to expose all the fraud, just at precisely the time that the presumed incoming Federal Chancellor, Herr Merz, is talking about a massive expansion of the German military. A substantial gold reserve would be kind of handy for that too (and a big military to protect it.)

In other words, it's as if, almost exactly a century later, the ghost of Herr Schacht is back, and he's saying, "It's not ok... because I don't think you're good for it any more...."

So now the question is, to whom did we "lose" Germany's gold?

See you on the flip side...

Love him or hate him thinking he is an idiot; Alex Jones predicted 9/11 on tape with time stamps and said it was a CIA Black Op !

Quote:Chapters: 0:00 How Alex Jones Predicted 9/11 9:22 The CIA's Influence Over The X Files 13:33 The Globalists Are Hiding in Plain Sight 17:55 Why the Left Wants Trump Killed 20:50 The Burden and Responsibility Alex Jones Bears 25:37 The Spiritual Revolution 35:28 Why the Most Evil People Are the Most Unhappy 38:50 The Secret Undermining of the West 43:04 The Assassination of Infowars Journalist Jamie White 47:03 Have We Lost the War With Russia? 49:47 There Was a 50% Chance of Nuclear War and the Pentagon Didn’t Care 57:05 The EU’s 20-Year War Strategy 1:00:00 Why the Globalists Are So Scared of Donald Trump 1:09:57 The Plan to End Free Speech in the United States 1:14:10 Alex Jones Details the Legal Attacks Against Him 1:25:21 Why Obama Secretly Labeled Alex Jones a National Security Threat 1:29:59 The Fraudulent Auction to Sell Infowars to The Onion 1:34:42 The Real Culprit Behind the Lawfare Against Alex Jones 1:39:54 Will the New Department of Justice Help Alex Jones? 1:52:14 The Potential Nuclear Exchange Between Iran and Israel 1:55:41 They Want You Dull, Asleep, and Spiritually Dead 1:58:38 The Evils of the Transhumanist Movement

Quote:That ruckus you hear in the capital markets is the sickening howl of the Fugazy Economy meeting its extinction. Fugazy means fake, unreal, dishonest, misaligned to what societies need to thrive. Fugazy means mis-using the time-value of things that purport to be wealth to multiply fake wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of the many. The pernicious effects of that system are visible all across the ruined landscape of our country, a nation of broken cities, failed towns, and a demoralized populace.

Mr. Trump apparently aims to convert the expiring Fugazy economy into a production economy — yikes! — based on making things of value, and perhaps more importantly, of people at all social levels having meaningful roles in the making and moving of things. The Trump tariffs are the first big step in a process that is already generating a whole lot of friction, heat, and ferment. The aim of the tariffs is straightforward: the end of a trade regime that punishes and cripples American production.

The response so far is heartening. Many other countries suddenly seek new trade arrangements with the USA, correctly sensing that Mr. Trump means bidness. (This ain’t no Mud Club. . . this ain’t no foolin’ around. . . .) It’s even possible that these readjustments will happen so swiftly that the tariff differentials will be a wash before summer, and everybody will be, at least, on a firm footing, knowing what the clear new rules say. This new disposition of things required forceful incentives to change entrenched, harmful practices.

Another angle on this process is the dynamic known as import-replacement. It means exactly what it sounds like: where you used to get stuff from other lands, you now make it here. It should be obvious that this can’t be accomplished overnight. But the question is: okay, when are you going to start? Part of the answer is: we can’t afford to put it off any longer. There’s an awful lot of stuff, from machine tools to pharmaceuticals to military equipment that we had better start making again — or else slide into collapse, perhaps even slavery to other powers.

That process starts with deploying real capital — as opposed to Fugazy capital — to re-start businesses and industries. That will take money away from hedge funds and other rackets that exist to play games with evermore abstract layers of things that only pretend to represent money. As that occurs, a lot of pretend money will vanish. Don’t be too shocked by this. That’s what happens when a society bends back toward reality: you start sorting out the real money from the fake money. That’s why the price of gold keeps marching up.

I sense that Mr. Trump and his colleagues knew full-well that the tariff play would rattle the markets badly, that these “corrections” are an unavoidable consequence, and are better gotten-over as quickly as possible. What else would you expect in a system that has dedicated itself for decades to mis-pricing the value of just about everything? The snap-back is sure to be harsh.

The psychopathocracy that drives the Global Left lost more traction last week in its quest to keep all of its old rackets running. Their foot-soldiers in the USA have been defunded effectively by Mr. Musk’s DOGE, starting with the immense network of rackets that were run around the USAID program. The Woke NGOs are no more and the fat paychecks are no longer going out to the nose-ring-for-lunch-bunch who came to infest the DC Beltway — and their satellite offices in Democratic Party controlled cities. Hence, the feeble turn-outs in last weekend’s street actions.

The Baby Boomers have gone especially psychotic. That’s why there are so many old folks waving those Soros-made placards in the astroturfed crowds of the “Hands-off” protests. After an eighty-year run of the most mind-blowing comfort and convenience enjoyed by any generation in world history, America’s Boomers stare into the abyss of their fading Fugazy fortunes as their stock portfolios tank. Kind of too bad. Maybe you shouldn’t have gone along for the ride. Maybe you should have cared for your country a bit more.



Here’s your poster-boy for that: the retarded slob rock-and-roller Neil Young, performing in support of the US Intel blob, the Covid-19 vaccine campaign, the degenerate Democratic party, Senator Adam Schiff, and BlackRock. Neil Young’s estimated net worth is about $200-million. He could lose ninety percent of that and still live a life of luxury. In 2022, he inveighed against Covid vaccine “misinformation” and promoted the shots. Guess, what? You were dead wrong about that, Neil, and now a lot of people are dead and dying because of those vaccines. He has many compadres in showbiz who took the same position against reality.

The time is not far-off when they will be revealed as disgraceful tools — Public vaxx champions such as Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Oprah Winfrey, Howard Stern, Ryan Reynolds, Lady Gaga. . . the list is long and discouraging. Meanwhile, they’re all out there rallying the Woke troops against the Golden Golem of Greatness as the Left’s leaky lifeboat goes down, gurgle, gurgle. In the process, they’ve destroyed Hollywood, rock and roll, and comedy. The country will recover from that, too. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to laugh at them in the years to come as the obituaries roll in.

Meanwhile, brace and rejoice! Great changes are set in motion. Roll with the turbulence. You’ll come out the other end, stronger, wiser, steadier, perhaps even happier. And, mark ye, the silence emanating from the DOJ and the FBI these budding spring days. The New York Times is nervous as all git-out.

This past Monday, An outfit calling itself "Colossal Biosciences" made a bold claim that they had "de-extincted" the Dire Wolf.

It's bullshit, of course. A scam. A hoax. Never happened.

I was all set to go off on one of my mega-rants about it, but a little while ago, I found a short video that encapsulated most or all of my objections, and decided to post that in lieu of my usual wall of text:



So these creatures are NOT Dire Wolves. They are merely GMO Gray Wolves, designer wolves, Run of the mill Gray Wolves, just with a flashier paint job.

Granted, their ears are different - bigger, pointier, than Gray Wolves. They are bigger than the aerage Gray Wolf, and are projected to reach about 150 pounds or so. They're white, an off-color for wolves... but neither the size nor the color are out of range for run of the mill Gray Wolves.

If these are "Die Wolves", then I beat the company at "de-extincting" them by about 16 or 17 years, and using far more low-tech means - I just bred them.

Below is an image of my big male timber wolf hybrid. It was taken 15 or 16 years ago... but notice how closely he resembles the two white "Dire Wolves" shown in the plethora of videos about them on YouTube. The bigger, pointier ears. The muzzle. The white color. The massive bushy tail. The "wolf ruffs" on his jowls. The heavier fur.

As a side note, it's unlikely that actual Dire Wolves were white, and they were definitely not wolves. White is a color usually reserved for arctic animals who exist in snow most of the year. Dire Wolves were not arctic creatures for most of their time on Earth.

His name was Logan, and he weighed in at 145 pounds, just 5 pounds short of the projection for these wolves. Yeah, he was a big-un, but his sire was a full blooded Timber Wolf who weighed 160 pounds. His ma was, as i recall, a white german shepherd, which was at the time a relatively newly recognized breed in America, originally imported from Germany.



Logan was not a "Dire Wolf", despite his superficial but remarkably similar resemblance to these impostors.  He was a wolf-german shepherd hybrid. Nor did I ever claim he was anything but that, and that's really what pisses me off about this announcement. It's a lie, being broadcast far and wide in a effort to dupe a gullible public. That irritates me.

I did wonder where Colossal Biosciences got it's funding from, especially in light of the claims in their videos that they were either currently or planning to provide services freely to a variety of recipients. You don't get to do that without some pretty deep coffers, and being honest, no sane person is going to pay them to do their voodoo.

EndTheMadnessNow provided the answer to that query in the shoutbox, and it clears a lot of things up for me:

Quote:Colossal is connected at the hip to the globalist orgs such as UN, WEF, Wellcome Trust, Climate Change, apparently military too and have quite an elite board of advisors & scientists. Colossal co-founder is Prof. George Church. A world-renowned Harvard/MIT geneticist, molecular engineer, chemist, Synthetic Biology scientist, and world leading transhumanist on a quest for immortality. He's attempting to create a new version of the human being. Billions upon billions have poured into his CRISPR research for past 10 years.

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