TB

Former Gurkha Infantry Officer. KCL WarStudies MA - Hybrid/Grey-Zone conflict.

[TB @Twintone535]

There is so much wealth, power and capacity in US & Europe and the wider “West”… yet we seem incapacitated by fear, insecurity, self-doubt and self-loathing. Ridiculous we cede ground to nations as incompetent and impotent as Russia, N.Korea & Iran (1/2)

[Dr. Brian L. Cox @BrianCox_RLTW]

It looks like a transnational terrorist group invaded a sovereign country almost 3 years ago now and provoked a large-scale armed conflict by committing one of the most horrific atrocities in living memory then chose to deliberately hide & fight among its own civilian population.

[Aviani @AvianiHashem]

You can’t make this shit up😂

[Richard Williams @williams_rje]

Although it is exactly what I expected from this utter lizard, this really is a world-beating and most special combination of deceit, moral cowardice and self-serving ambition. A new, historic low, even for @UKLabour

Watch these ideological “dis-loyalists” do exactly the same for the Veterans and the NI Troubles Bill, to the great delight of our terrorist enemies, and their supporters.

This guy couldn’t tell a truth when he was the Defence Secretary - a corrupt and practiced habit that he’s sure to carry into the Treasury. Watch out economy…

[Krzysztof Szczawinski 🇵🇱 @Kristof_Poland]

Dear socialist friend,

Nothing is stopping you.

If collective ownership works so much better, you can prove it by next Tuesday. Pool your savings with your comrades. Elect a planning committee. Run a bakery, a farm, a repair shop – shared ownership, equal pay, decisions by vote. All of it is fully legal, today, everywhere in the West. No revolution needed.

And yet.

You want the workers to seize the factories – but you won’t open a food truck with three people from your group chat. You demand collective housing – but you won’t sign a joint lease with people who agree with you about everything.

People have tried voluntary socialism for two hundred years. The communes keep dissolving – the members simply walk out. The only socialist countries that lasted were the ones that locked the borders.

That’s the whole story. Where leaving is allowed, everyone leaves. Socialism only survives where leaving is banned. The people voted – on foot.

Just do it. Or admit that "collective" was always just a word for other people’s property.

[Eve Barlow @Eve_Barlow]

I'm so fucking bored of all of you.

There were fucking incredible bands, and actors, and storytellers, and writers, and comedians, and painters, and fashion designers, and architects, and marketers, and fucking brilliant ideas people, and they were all pitchfork-chased out of the room for being brilliant and NOT boring, by all you boring puritanical talentless wankers, so you can sit around "taking up space" at all the places where fucking amazing art used to happen just opining for hours on end about things that have already been decided.

Things like: "there are many types of lesbians". NO. There aren't "many types of lesbians". There is ONE type of lesbian. A woman who wants to get it on with another woman. We decided this eons ago. Get over it. Move on. It's done. It's decided.

"Black lives matter". Alright, nobody ever said that wasn't the case. We know already. Let's get on with it now thanks. Get back to business.

"Rape is a spectrum". No it's fucking not. Rape is rape, and it's illegal. Fuck you. Move on. Let's stop debating it.

"From the river to the sea". You don't even fucking know which river and which sea, you dolts. Stop endlessly bleating on about things you don't understand. Never gonna happen. Move on.

All this time and fucking oxygen you've all stolen from people who were using it for the betterment of the world and culture at large, and we're all fucking bored out of our brains because all that's left is to try and shut you lot up for giving us all brain damage.

[John Cotterell @cotterzz]

It's an incredible cut, I would never have noticed if it wasn't pointed out.
Here's another example from an ad that is 30 years old now and still blows my mind - keep an eye on the location, the jumps are quite.. spectacular.😂
@SpaceKoala @FilmJournalGuy

[Hamidreza Azizi @HamidRezaAz]

#Iran’s Growing Debate Over How to End the War

🔹The differences within Iran’s leadership over how to proceed with the war are becoming increasingly visible.

🔹Today, both President Masoud Pezeshkian and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf made unusually direct comments about the need to end the war and the economic costs of continuing it.

🔹Ghalibaf said that regardless of how much military power Iran possesses, “if people are hungry” and there is no economic growth, the country cannot endure. Security, he argued, cannot be sustained without a functioning economy. He then added that, as someone with a military background, “we know the value of peace better than those who talk about peace.”

🔹That last point is important. Ghalibaf has increasingly positioned himself alongside Pezeshkian in arguing for a diplomatic way out, while pushing back against hardliners who portray such an approach as capitulation.

🔹Pezeshkian was even more direct: “The war must end at some point.” His argument was that Iran should end it now, while Tehran still believes it is negotiating from a position of strength, rather than wait until its economic situation deteriorates further. He also lashed out at critics of his administration, saying those sitting “outside the ring” have little understanding of the pressures the government is actually facing.

🔹These comments come amid increasingly open acknowledgments of Iran’s economic problems. Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati recently admitted on state television that Iran cannot sell its oil because of the blockade. Trump’s new economic pressure campaign is making the situation even more difficult.

🔹There is also a growing concern about Hormuz. Before the latest two weeks of fighting, Ghalibaf had already warned that the Strait has strategic value only as long as ships continue to use it. If traffic remains disrupted, other countries will inevitably search for alternatives.

🔹That appears to be happening. Reports that millions of barrels of oil are already being moved through alternative routes are now being cited by the more pragmatic camp as evidence that Iran cannot rely indefinitely on disruption in Hormuz as its main source of leverage. This is consistent with the broader problem I discussed earlier: Iran can impose substantial costs through Hormuz, but it cannot remain in a permanent state of confrontation with the U.S. and the GCC states.

🔹The problem is that the hardliners also have a point. According to them, even if Tehran is prepared to return to diplomacy, there is little indication that Trump wants to return to the previous terms. His new economic campaign suggests that Washington may instead use Iran’s growing difficulties to demand more.

🔹This is creating a vicious circle. The longer the confrontation continues, the stronger the economic case for diplomacy becomes. But the more Washington increases pressure, the harder it becomes for Iranian leaders to make concessions without appearing to capitulate.

🔹What is becoming clearer, however, is that an important part of Iran’s leadership now believes that the current situation is not sustainable and that the military leverage accumulated during the war needs to be translated into a diplomatic outcome sooner rather than later.

[Richard Mark Fitzpatrick @richmfitz]

@jk_rowling J.K Rowling's comebacks are like watching a bunch of thugs trying to beat up an old man, only to find out he is a kung fu master.

[TB @Twintone535]

@shashj Good luck. Looks like it’ll be a tougher gig than normal. Lots of support back home.

[JP Lindsley | Journalist @JPLindsley]

Two arms plants. Four days. Both tied to Ukraine.

A massive explosion hit KNDS's military plant in Colleferro, outside Rome — a company that supplies Ukraine's defense forces and produces inside Ukraine.

Four days earlier, the same kind of blast hit Emilian Gebrev's plant in Bulgaria. Not the first: there were explosions in 2022 and 2023. In 2015, GRU officers poisoned Gebrev with Novichok in his own apartment.

And today, Tusk announced Poland foiled a Russian plot to kill a US citizen tied to arms deliveries for Ukraine.

Russia isn't just fighting Ukraine's army anymore. It's hunting the factories that arm it — on EU soil.

[Fidelius Schmid @FideliusSchmid]

You cannot enough hail this busdriver at Leipzig airport: He saw a low hovering drone beside a Ukrainian Antonov - and stepped on it. He thus prevented a catastrophy and was lucky to survive himself. The drone carried 800 g of Semtex. What’s more (1/2) https://t.co/8atNAXzRh8

[The England Pod @England_Pod]

If you think I'm going to watch a 10-minute compilation of Jude Bellingham at the World Cup, you'd be absolutely correct.

[Punta @PuntaLeyend]

Si Nahuel Molina no empuja a Nico Williams no hubiésemos marcado. Es el final perfecto y merecido para todos. La gracia divina. El cancherismo les ha jodido la vida. Ganó el mejor y el más limpio.

[TB @Twintone535]

@shashj Haha no you really can.

[TB @Twintone535]

Thank fuck… well done Spain!

[Karl Sharro @KarlreMarks]

104 matches played to get to this shit

[Out of Context Football Manager @nocontextfm1]

Wayne Rooney on the half-time show:

“I thought it was crap”

National hero 😂🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[Stan Collymore @StanCollymore]

When a country's economy is a basket case, when its middle class live in Miami having stolen what's left of it, when a politician has sideburns and a chainsaw, when you have a mythical island where your teenagers were demolished in 12 days by professional soldiers.

Sport is going to be really, really, really important.

Bread and circuses, and all that.