Patrick I’m a fellow canuckian who lives in NW BC. We’re in the way of some of those pipelines Alberta wants to build to get tar sands oil to tidewater. Few up here want the pipelines. So I’ve been watching the oil scene. I think Putin may have opened the taps to pay the USA back for all the interference with Nordstream. I suspect Putin thinks the US can’t fight back hard because the early loser in the 3 way shootout will be US Shale. The Shale operators have never made the money they said would so they kept borrowing. There’s several suggesting that Shale Operators owe so much that it's actually a bank problem. I check the Oilprce website every couple days. Last week they had an article suggesting 50% of the shale crowd will go down; nobody left but the majors, Cdn frackers are going under too. Trump is talking about bailing out the oil patch, along with Boeing ad infinitum. Was that part of Putin’s plan?

Harper, So Benny G did form the coalition but I’m trying to imagine Ysrael Beitenu in the same room as the Arab MKs. Also Bibi will be up to all his tricks to get someone to walk, otherwise he goes to jail. There is that glimmer of hope now. There was none under Bibi. In other news from Israel: The Is. govt has published a lot of material on covid 19 but all in Hebrew. Is. Palestinians (21% of pop) had to write & advertise theirs in Arabic. The virus hasn’t hit hard yet, none in Gaza. My stomach rolls when I think of covid 19 in that hell hole.

Colonel, & others I believe that the DNC doesn’t want Tulsi on camera because it would make ‘Lady Macbeth’ look like ‘Lady Macbeth. Yes, I believe the DNC is oiling the wheels on Hilarys walker, for her appearance as VP candidate. If she comes down with covid 19, they’ll use Michelle Obama. Bernie did speak out for Tulsis appearance but not loudly or frequently.

TTG I appreciated you starting the column with a Warren Zevon song. Some details & a rhetorical question. Turkish reporters are giving the #s killed in the air strike as 73 dead & 82 wounded, most seriously. It is very messy on the ground; Turkey has equipped Free Syrian Army (FSA) with Turkish uniforms & APCs (M113). No one seems to know the extent to which Turkish special forces are mixed in with HTS & FSA. What is sure is that the Turks have brought in artillery which was used at Saraqib. There is also vid online of Turks using a manpad to shoot at Russian or Syrian a/c. The Turk/FSA/HTS attack on Saraqib showed SAAs ‘talent’ problem is not fixed: Saraqib was held by militia, who were pushed out after 3 attacks (arty?). Saraqib is apparently ‘no man’s land’ at the moment. Meanwhile, SAA’s ‘shock troops’ were up north tearing another hole in salafist jihadi lines. The ‘shock troops’ seem to be the same half dozen elite formations used over & over in every attack & counter attack. Interesting that ‘Liwa al Quds’ (Palestinian) is among them. The SAA says that they are no longer fighting Syrians; it’s guys from the ‘Stans, Chechins & especially Uyghur's. The Saker has an article by ‘Col Cassad’ who says it’s all a big Kabuki Show. He marshalled a lot of factoids so you have to wonder. Certainly Gollum, er I mean Erdo, doesn’t want a batch of hard core salafist jihadis coming back into Turkey & HTS/FSA were crying about not being able to hold SAA (& Sukhoi) attacks because they had no artillery support.