Sally Sparks

Music, art, design, engineering, building stuff, and digging into what’s up in the world. Former career in intelligence.

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

Merz: "Ukraine has been defending its freedom for more than 4 years."

(AfD members laughing)

Merz: "That’s telling sign, ladies and gentlemen. They laugh about it, they laugh about fate of millions of people in Ukraine and they travel to Moscow for their champagne receptions."

[O’Shea Jackson Jr @OsheaJacksonJr]

I saw it. Now you have to see it. His name is Samuel. And he…is a king.

[Sally Sparks @salire]

@Nusbacher @shashj Meow! Oink!

[Sally Sparks @salire]

@ColMoeDavis no place like home

[Bruce Arthur @bruce_arthur]

JD Vance is lecturing the Pope on Catholicism and Pierre Poilievre is lecturing Mark Carney on economics and RFK Jr is lecturing scientists about vaccines and Donald Trump is lecturing the world on tariffs and Pete Hegseth is quoting Pulp Fiction and thinking it’s the Bible

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs. Military action will not create space for freedom or times of #Peace, which comes only from the patient promotion of coexistence and dialogue among peoples.

[Sally Sparks @salire]

@GeoRebekah @WhiteHouse Albert Speer

[Sally Sparks @salire]

@tomaspueyo the #1 clue when I read something. It's not easy. It is hard to go on.

[Sally Sparks @salire]

@PeterVogel He may have some good content, but damn, I wish he'd stop letting CHAT GPT spit out the prose.

[Billy Misanthrope @notesfromspain]

Probably the most accurate nailing of the MAGA base I have ever seen.

[Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡ @shanaka86]

BREAKING: Zelensky just landed in the UAE and signed a defence cooperation agreement with President MBZ.

The deal on the table changes everything about this war. Ukraine is offering Gulf states 1,000 drone interceptors per day. Each Sting interceptor costs $2,100. Each Patriot missile it replaces costs $3.9 million. In exchange, Ukraine wants the Patriot missiles the Gulf states are burning through, because Kyiv cannot get enough of them to stop Russian missiles.

Read that again. The country America refused to arm fast enough is now arming America’s allies with a weapon that costs 1,857 times less than the one America cannot produce fast enough.

The National reported on March 27 that Zelensky told reporters: “We’d like to quietly receive the Patriot missiles we have a deficit of, and give them a corresponding number of interceptors.” AFP confirmed the UAE agreement on March 28. Eleven countries have formally requested Ukraine’s drone defence expertise per Zelensky’s own count. Over 200 Ukrainian military specialists are already deployed across the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan.

Here is the arithmetic that should terrify every Pentagon procurement officer on earth.

The United States fired 943 Patriot interceptors in the first four days of the Iran war per a US Congressional study cited by the Jerusalem Post. That is eighteen months of Lockheed Martin’s annual production consumed in 96 hours. Each of those 943 shots cost $3.9 million. Total expenditure: $3.68 billion in four days on defensive interceptions alone. Iran produces 10,000 Shahed drones per month per Reuters. Each drone costs $20,000 to $50,000. The cost exchange ratio is 114 to 1 in Iran’s favour per Military Times.

Ukraine’s Sting interceptor inverts this arithmetic entirely. At $2,100, the cost ratio flips from 114-to-1 against America to roughly 10-to-1 against Iran. Ukraine can supply 1,000 per day. That is 30,000 per month against Iran’s 10,000 Shaheds per month. For the first time in this war, the defender’s production rate exceeds the attacker’s production rate at a fraction of the cost.

And the country that built this weapon is the same country that Trump publicly rejected. “No, they are not helping. We do not need their help. We know more about drones than anyone else” per Fox News. He doubled down: “The last person we need help from is Zelensky.” Meanwhile the Pentagon notified Congress of plans to redirect $750 million in Ukraine-bound Patriot missiles to Gulf states per House of Saud reporting. America is simultaneously refusing Ukraine’s cheap solution and cannibalising Ukraine’s expensive one.

Zelensky framed this explicitly. He told The National: “No matter how many Patriots, THAADs, or other air-defence systems are in the Middle East, that alone is not enough for fully effective air defence.” He told the UK Parliament: “When it comes to shooting down massive Shahed attacks, only Ukrainian experience can really help with this today.”

The Pentagon is spending $3.9 million per interception, raiding Swiss fighter jet accounts to cover shortfalls, and diverting Ukraine’s own Patriot supply to the Gulf. Zelensky is offering the same result for $2,100 and producing 1,000 units per day. The market has a word for this kind of disruption.

The $2,100 drone is the most important weapon in this war. And the country that built it is the one America said it did not need.

Full analysis - https://t.co/32ixeQpfif

[Sally Sparks @salire]

@mmpadellan "We asked people who like Trump if they like Trump, and they all said they like Trump." ..... good to know.

[Sally Sparks @salire]

@Nusbacher His non-fiction "Battle of Britain", released around the same time, made a big impression on me.

[Sally Sparks @salire]

@ColMoeDavis Howdy.

[Sally Sparks @salire]

@Nusbacher I think using the term 'kamikaze' requires a suicidal pilot. Shahed is just slower, with bigger wings.

[Jill Filipovic @JillFilipovic]

I find it endlessly fascinating that the right has waged a war on DEI because they say it unjustly elevates unqualified people solely because of their race, but then elevates the least-qualified absolute morons to positions of power while gutting institutions of excellence.

[Shawn Farash @Shawn_Farash]

TRUMP CALLS OUT BAD BUNNY!

[Sally Sparks @salire]

@SethAndrewsTTA Many people, especially in the Bible Belt Burbs grew up in churches featuring a “full-service” segregated community model: youth programs, singles groups, counseling, classes, gyms, cafés, sports leagues, volunteering, mission trips, concerts, childcare, even job networking.

[Sally Sparks @salire]

@PeterVogel @Borrowed7Time @thenewarea51 @steffanwatkins We back in the day that was my ride to work for a project that had me out there a couple of months a year. When I started going it was DC-7s. We welcomed the arrival 737s!

[Sally Sparks @salire]

@cmclymer Jesus wept.