| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a battlefield guide to Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. Sign up here. Depending on when you read this, there are fewer than 60 days until Donald Trump can launch his 24-hour diplomatic sweep to end the war in Ukraine. Before we arrive at the inauguration of the 47th president of the United States, however, a lot will have happened to shape how he makes good on his campaign boast. First, North Korea sent 100,000 troops to help Moscow prosecute the war against Kyiv. Then, last week, President Joe Biden showed that lame ducks can quack very effectively by authorizing Ukraine to use US-supplied Army Tactical Missile System to hit targets deep inside Russia — and Kyiv appears to have promptly used the ATACMS (ominously pronounced like “attack ‘em”) to assault a military base about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of its border. This week, if Ukrainian claims are borne out, Vladimir Putin once again raised the specter of nuclear war by fielding an intercontinental ballistic missile against his enemy. ICBMs were primarily designed to carry nuclear payloads. So what can Trump do? While believing the once and future president’s one-day solution is ludicrous, James Stavridis believes a demilitarized zone akin to that separating North and South Korea may work to end hostilities. That could be followed by extended periods — to mollify Putin — that allow Kyiv to pursue European Union and, perhaps, NATO membership. “Everyone will hate parts of this deal,” says James. But he notes, “We have a saying in north Florida where I’m from: Sometimes you gotta be for what’s gonna happen anyway.” Andreas Kluth, meanwhile, says Biden may have done Trump a favor. The ATACMS give Ukraine and the US an offensive momentum before any potential negotiations. Says Andreas: “This step saves Trump from having to escalate later and instead gives him chips to bargain away again next year.” Biden is a good steward of the office he is vacating, says Andreas, even as he hands it off to Trump, who offered him no such courtesies the last time around. “As part of that handover, Biden is giving Trump options, in the form of Ukrainian advantages that will become part of future peace negotiations.” Last week, Marc Champion offered Trump some advice about how to provide Ukraine a secure future without having to cave to Putin’s wishes — and setting the stage for a future war. The incoming US president might still be able to do that. Right now, however, he must not be distracted by Putin raising the nuclear ante with ICBMs, says Marc in his latest column. “Putin talks up his massive nuclear arsenal because it has proved extraordinarily successful in getting the Biden administration and leaders in Europe to self-censor and slow-walk their aid to Ukraine. If he can now get Trump to frame peace talks as a question of whether Americans and Europeans would like: a) to avoid World War III and a nuclear Armageddon, or b) go on supporting Ukraine until it gets a sustainable deal, they will surely pick option A.” Marc’s advice: “Stop fibrillating every time Putin talks about nuclear weapons.” Russia can escalate in other ways, and if you’re distracted by Armageddon, then you’ll be tricked by tactics that don’t have the shape of a mushroom cloud.  Kitty and Sam in happier days. Credit: Sanrio Let’s take a short break from war news. Let me bring up the plight of poor Tuxedo Sam, my favorite character in the Kittyverse. The blue, overfed penguin used to be the boyfriend of Hello Kitty, the Sanrio Co. star who turned 50 this month but hasn’t aged, as noted by Gearoid Reidy. Did they break up because Sam knows her too well? She is — as her official biography has said from the beginning — not a Japanese cat but an English girl named Kitty White. Sam — who was born in Antarctica — lived in Britain for a bit and, while here, attended uni (as we call college), accumulating excellent language skills as well as 365 bow ties. The origin story is still controversial for Hello Kitty’s global fans who want her to be a real feline. Sanrio knows a lot is on the line. Their beribboned superstar is worth about $6.5 billion. So, the company is trying to play things down the middle. Their chief executive officer Tomokuni Tsuji — who is 14 years younger than Kitty — told the BBC: “Hello Kitty is Hello Kitty and she can be whoever you want her to be.” Meanwhile, Tuxedo Sam has not been made available for interviews. “Since the prospect of a second Donald Trump presidency became a reality, [gold] has been hit by a double whammy. A decline of $220 per troy ounce, or 8%, since the end of October may seem minor in the context of it still being up more than 25% this year. But the loss of momentum is significant — gold no longer just goes higher and higher. Whether the rally can resume remains very much in the balance. … Not only was gold looking overstretched after surging to a record this year, its price in dollars for non-US investors has become 5% more expensive on top.” — Marcus Ashworth in “Gold Is at the Mercy of Trump, China and King Dollar.”  “Europe has deluded itself into thinking that it had largely solved its Russian gas reliance problem. It never did. … [The] idea of replacing Russian LNG with American LNG ... makes no sense. First, US production is already largely committed. If Europe wants more US LNG, it will have to pay higher prices than Asia to divert cargoes. ... If Brussels is serious about replacing Russian gas, why hasn’t it banned it already? Politically and economically, it makes sense to continue with the status quo. But morally? It’s absurd to buy Russian gas at the same time as donating missiles to Ukraine.” — Javier Blas in “Europe Is Gaslighting Itself About Its Energy Woes.” Target hits the mark but it’s an own-goal. — Andrea Felsted Trees can’t cancel your SUV. — Lara Williams More (clean) power to you. — David Fickling How to take advantage of AI. — Parmy Olson Vote-buying by any other name. — Mihir Sharma Sideswiped on the inflation exit ramp. — Marcus Ashworth Too giddy for Trump? — Paul J. Davies How British stock analysts can learn from America. — Chris Hughes At the site of the old Museum of London — on the southern edge of the Barbican Centre — there is a garden that is often available to bookfor events. The area is always on the brink of being torn down for one big project or the other. So, I took a peek at what might be lost. Down by one wall was a large stone plaque depicting a bearded head with a round gnomish nose and mouth wide open about to chomp down on a rather robust bull, standing over bunches of juicy grapes. It was a fitting omen for the coming season of feasts. But what was it?  Please have a cow. Photograph by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg For those of you avidly following the second season of Wolf Hall, this may be a reminder of how Tudor memories metamorphose as they are passed down. The plaque was once displayed diagonally across from the garden, at the top floor of the Bull and Mouth Inn, which was demolished in 1830 to make way for a large hotel and stables that was itself taken down in 1888. One theory is that Bull and Mouth is a corruption of “Boulogne Mouth” — where Henry VIII captured a harbor from the French in 1544 (at which point the monarch was already onto his sixth and final wife). The figure at the very top of the plaque is said to be his son and successor, Edward VI, which might mean the piece was sculpted during his brief six-year reign. So why does the inscription refer to a famous strongman from ancient Greece — Milo the Cretan — who was so powerful he could carry cows on his shoulders and perhaps eat them whole? In any case, it’s another one of those wonderfully eccentric London place names out of which people like to weave romantic if grain-of-salt stories. You can add the area called Elephant and Castle to the list. It’s supposedly a reference to Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, who was la infanta de Castilla. I’m hoping the Bull and Mouth memorial will join the new Museum of London once it reopens at the renovated Smithfield Market, which is fittingly just a few steps away from Cowcross Street. Them’s the breaks.  ”I’m sorry, Squirlzilla. The director wants a giant ape for the role.” Illustration by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg Notes: Please send tough nuts to crack and feedback to Howard Chua-Eoan at hchuaeoan@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook. | 
