Pretty sure he was already a puppet, that was just the rimming of the ring.

EDIT: Speaking of which, does anyone know if Marina Gross is still actually alive? I get not wanting media attention etc, but she seems like a ghost for someone that translates for world leaders.

I think it’s a time share with China

Actually yes, there are more oligarchs than the idiots in charge right now, and it’s going to come to a head at some point. Each one has their feifdom and they won’t go quietly.

More to the point, it’s going to reach the point of mass protest again, and moron is going to call in the military. After which everything is on the table. No one in power will be safe in anything but armored transport and guarded villages, which won’t last long. At that point the US and it’s global hegemony will be broken. There won’t be the resources to project military power beyond our borders and a few subject states, because it will cost so much to keep security at home, and productivity will tank hard.

No one can beat the US military except the US itself, and it’s being forced to do just that.

Given current politics, maybe. It’s a big expenditure that could go bankrupt if the current political insanity gets shut down. I think if the government put some guarantees of future support in case that happens it would instantly be a worth while project. Which probably depends on selling it as a national security and resilience issue.

Good location, limited infrastructure. They’d need to build a full commercial cargo port, and probably expand the oil/gas facility a lot.

Half dozen is plenty really. In recipe’s it’s supposed to be 3 quail eggs to replace 1 chicken egg, it’s really about 2.5 just rounded up. With a family of four and a dozen birds we have egg breakfasts 2 or 3 times a week in the summer, down to every other week in the winter. We’ll probably expand the flock a little this summer, bigger cage plans once I can figure out how to keep them as safe as they are in the shed now. Just found out rodents can spread bird flu too, so building requirements just got tougher.

It’s made me a lot more smug about having our own quail.

Carnival BB gun on a turret basically. Squat for range, but squat for detection distance anyway. It would be able to knock out shaped charge dones outside their effective range, just barely. Drones with a grenade would still be close enough to be fatal without cover. It’d be an automated system to do the same thing the sad cages do now.