The United States led drive toward world war 3 is well on way. While world war 3 is in process, the “HOT” portion is just building up.
HOT refers to Americans dying, American cities being attacked, and American military actively fighting the Global South.
Pictures of some malls in the USA that are still running
A contemporaneous measure of the health of a given “middle class” is the local malls.
- Vibrant and healthy middle class = vibrant malls.
- Dead and dying middle class = dead malls.
While most American malls are dead, there still are some that remain open in the more affluent sections of the country. Here’s some pictures of the malls in the upper-middle class areas inside of the United States…
Keeping Up With The Joneses
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of seeing your neighbor drive up in their beautiful new car or hearing about their fabulous planned vacation.
It can make you forget about every other plan or goal you’ve made for yourself. Keeping up with the Joneses can eat away at your financial dreams.
“Keeping up with the Joneses” means to try to own all the same things as people you know in order to seem as good as them.
But when you’re making purchases that have no value beyond impressing others, you’re shortchanging your future.
For starters, it takes away your joy in life.
Nothing is ever quite good enough anymore. There’s always a nicer, newer something that’s siphoning off your money. Houses, cars, electronics. The list is endless.
And none of it makes you happy because it’s a continuous cycle.
Financially, it’s a catastrophe. Trying to keep up with those around you who appear to have it all is devastating financial accounts all over the country.
Many times, those others you are trying to keep up with are in crippling debt themselves. It’s all a house of cards.
Taking a good, hard look at previous expenditures is a key way to determine if you’ve fallen into spending based on others vs. your own plan.
As you look at those expenditures, ask yourself if you’d buy them if you had the opportunity to do it over.
Keep a list of purchases you regret and review regularly as a reality check on where you’re putting your money.
Next time you’re about to make a big purchase, especially one that will put you into debt, take some time to examine your motives.
Ask yourself if you truly want or need to buy that expensive item that will be replaced in a few years, or do you want to retire early?
If your real goal is financial freedom, keeping up with the Joneses is not the way to achieve it.
Wang Yi struck a friendly pose for Hungarian media as he met Foreign and Trade Minister Peter Szijjarto
By Tessa Wong
BBC News, Asia Digital Reporter
Over the past year, leaders in the West have tried to cajole China to help them end the Ukraine war. Now Beijing has given its firmest response yet – and it’s not something many in the West would like.
In recent days, China has launched an assertive charm offensive, kicking off with top diplomat Wang Yi’s tour of Europe, which culminated in a warm welcome by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
Beijing has released not one but two position papers – the first offering the Chinese solution to the war, and the other outlining a plan for world peace. These largely retread China’s talking points from the past year, calling for respect for sovereignty (for Ukraine) and the protection of national security interests (for Russia), while opposing the use of unilateral sanctions (by the US).
The West may come away unimpressed – but convincing them was never likely the main goal for Beijing.
China’s goal: send a clear message to US
Firstly, it clearly seeks to position itself as a global peacemaker. An obvious clue about who it’s really trying to charm lies in one of its papers, where it mentions engaging South East Asia, Africa and South America – the so-called Global South.
In preaching an alternative vision to a US-led world order, it is wooing the rest of the globe, which is watching to see how the West handles the Ukraine crisis.
But another goal is to send a clear message to the US.
“There is an element of defiance,” said Alexander Korolev, an expert in Sino-Russian ties at the University of New South Wales. “It is signalling: ‘If things get ugly between us, I have someone to go to. Russia is not alone, which means that I will not be alone when there is a confrontation… don’t get comfortable in bullying me.'”
The timing, say observers, is a giveaway. Relations between the US and China have hit a new low, exacerbated by the spy balloon saga. Some have also questioned why China – if its intention is to help end the war – is only just now making its big diplomatic push for Ukraine peace.
“China had ample opportunities to display leadership, it was invited early on to contribute to ending the war… If the goal was to truly display the image of a global leader, you don’t have to sit on the fence for one year and try to perform a diplomatic dance,” said Dr Korolev.
There was a third goal, and it could be seen in Mr Wang’s itinerary.
By visiting France, Germany, Italy and Hungary, whose leaders China perceives as taking less of a hardline stance on Russia, Mr Wang may have been testing the waters to see if China could lure some of Europe into China’s orbit.
Watch: One year of war in Ukraine in 87 seconds
Beijing sees a “logical convergence of interests” with these countries, said Zhang Xin, an international political economy expert with the East China Normal University in Shanghai. “It believes the US has hegemonic power, and that a large part of the Transatlantic world could benefit from detaching from that system.”
But whether China will succeed in that particular goal is questionable. Mr Wang’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, where he criticised the US, did not play well in a roomful of America’s staunchest allies and, according to diplomats, only spawned greater distrust of China’s true motives.
His tour “was a very overt push to say: ‘We don’t have problems with Europe, we have problems with the US, we can fix things with you Europeans and you need to understand that the US is leading you down a problematic road'”, said Andrew Small, a senior fellow specialising in Europe-China relations at the German Marshall Fund think tank.
“But I think in most places in Europe, this message doesn’t have much traction.”
The key question now is whether Beijing will live up to its word of making peace as it tightens its embrace of Russia.
The US has warned this week that China was considering supplying lethal weapons to Russia, and that Chinese firms had already been supplying non-lethal dual-use technology – items which could have both civilian and military uses, such as drones and semi-conductors.
Publicly China has reacted with angry rhetoric. But behind closed doors, Mr Wang made it clear to top EU official Josep Borrell that it will not provide weapons to Russia.
EPA
Russian President Vladimir Putin warmly welcomed Mr Wang in Moscow
According to Mr Borrell, Mr Wang had also asked: “Why do you show concern for me maybe providing arms to Russia when you are providing arms to Ukraine?”
It is a revealing line, say observers, showing that Beijing still truly believes the West is to blame for fuelling the war.
“Sending weapons to any warring party is considered as further escalation – that is the position of the Chinese state so far,” said Dr Zhang.
There is scepticism that Beijing would supply weapons to Moscow, given how it runs counter to Chinese interests.
Such a move would be seen by others as a clear escalation of the war, and would lead to sanctions and disruption of trade with the West – hugely damaging for China, as the EU and US are among its top trading partners.
It would also raise global tensions significantly and likely push US allies further into Washington’s embrace, stymieing Beijing’s plan to woo some of them away.
What is more likely to happen, say observers, is that Beijing will continue or even step up indirect support to Russia, such as boosting economic trade – which has provided a financial lifeline to Moscow – and abstaining from sanctions on Russia.
They may even supply more dual-use technology through third party states such as Iran or North Korea, according to Dr Small, so that they can lend support “as deniably as possible”.
But as the war drags on, the issue of giving lethal weapons will resurface, he warned.
“There hasn’t been a question yet on what kind of significant things China could be asked to do, because previously Russia didn’t need to resupply,” said Dr Small. “But they are hitting that juncture. How long is China willing to say to Russia it will not do it?”
Days before the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin declared they had a “friendship without limits”.
A year on, China will have to answer the question of how far it would go for its special friend.
Japanese Figure Maker’s Vitruvian Man Is Here To Beat The Hell Out Of Your Other Toys
Sometimes it’s just not enough to have super hero and anime figures duke it out, you’ve got to add some historical and artistic firepower to your action figure duels. Fortunately, Japanese figure maker Figma has your back with their Table Museum series, a lineup of action figures that brings history’s most famous works of art to life (such as The Thinker and Michelangelo’s David). Now joining their lineup is perhaps the most formidable of masterpiece art–a multi-armed monstrosity in the form of a badass Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man action figure.
Mopre: Good Smile h/t: grapee
Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man is based on the correlations of the ideal human body using gemoetry, and is often described as an artistic masterpiece showing off “harmony of the human body.” So it should come as a fitting entry in the Table Museum series, which is made from a flexible type of plastic and fully posable joints. The Vitruvian Man figure comes with alternate upper-body parts and even a special dial to recreate his classic pose. Of special note, however, is just how freaking hard-boiled this Renaissance figure looks, with a permanent scowl, bulging muscles, and ability to just eviscerate the artistic egos of other masterpieces like this:
What’s It Like To Be A Member Of A Triad?
My involvement began in high school. There was nothing dramatic about it, I just became friends with a bunch of people I thought were cool and one thing led to another.
High school gangs are like triad training schools. They are not part of the triads per se, they’re more of a triad Mickey Mouse fan club where a group of young wannabes strut around pretending to be something they’re not. You’d be surprised at just how many of these there are.
The leaders of these high school gangs are usually affiliated with a low ranking triad member, called a 49 in triad lexicon. These are the foot soldiers. The 49 functions as big brother whose help the boys would call on in case of trouble, but big brother is also a scout who kept an eye out for promising young talent.
I must’ve seemed like one, because I was soon introduced to the 49er’s tailou (big brother), who was also a 49er. We met a few times at a local disco, snorted cocaine, gargled ketamine, popped ecstasy, and soon he trusted me enough to put me in charge of a few high-school gangs.
The triads are structured like a MLM scheme. At the lower levels, the more followers you recruit, the more powerful you become, the higher up you climb. The people above your rank are referred to as tailou or ____ ko which means elder brother, and your followers are referred to as DauGei, or children.
It’s all about the organization. So we organized.
We recruited the same way ISIS and Al Qaeda does: by giving disaffected and disenfranchised young men a sense of belonging. We start off by convincing the kids that we were cool by bringing them alcohol, drugs and other illicit goods. Then when they have issues they’d come to us for help and we’d help them. Many of the kids I recruited were bullied in school and looking for some revenge, and we’d give the kid’s bully a thorough trashing.
Some of the kids would naively come to see us as these cool guys who were looking out for them, and they’d seek to be a part of our circle. Once we got the kids on hooked on the illusion of brotherhood and coolness, they’re ours to keep. And they’ll bring their friends as well.
We went around the schools settling petty disputes such as who stole whose girlfriend – at the high school level, everything is petty- , and we enforced pax triadica with our fists. We demanded discipline from our members, and if one of our own went out of line we’d beat him up ourselves. We were a group of young bullies with our own set of rules and standards of behaviour. My recruits unwittingly traded one bully in school, for circle of friends who bullied one another.
From petty disputes we graduated on to settling disputes between local businesses. Unlicensed bars, moneylenders and illegal gambling dens would pay us a set fee, and in return we’d step in if they have problems. The money was terrible, but for a young kid, having adults and business owners turn to you for help is a huge ego trip.
I was able to grow the organization effectively because I understood the principles of peer pressure and groupthink. So if you’re a parent, I would advise you to obsess over who your teenager is hanging out with; there are many manipulators like me out there.
I must’ve been a pretty good recruiter, because the boss took me under his wing and introduced me to his boss, Suen Ko. Suen Ko was a hung kwan, or a mid-level lieutenant in the triad hierarchy. This is where I started to get involved with the actual organization. We had a short initiation ceremony in a karaoke room, and I became a 49 under Suen Ko.
Suen Ko owned a few nightclubs and bars, and virtually every night we’d be in one of his fine establishments drinking, partying, and partaking in every drug we could get our hands on. Our sort attracted a certain sort of girl, and there were girls aplenty. The bars were a money maker, but Suen Ko’s real money came from selling bootleg CDs.
At the time, bootleg CDs and eventually DVDs were an organized crime gold rush. This was before napster and way before bittorrent, and demand was so high that we filled up entire shopping malls with outlets selling pirated movies, music and software. A common joke was that if Bill Gates ever visited our malls, he’d have a heart attack on the spot.
For about 5 cents in costs for a blank CD, we sold the end product to the consumer for 15 local bucks a pop. Not even cocaine had that kind of margin. We were selling the bootlegs as fast as we could print them, and best of all piracy was perceived by the local cops as a low-impact crime and as such wasn’t rigorously enforced. Heck, many of our regular customers were cops. At the time, you could drive up to a police checkpoint with a stash of bootleg CDs on the backseat, give cheeky grin and a thumbs up, and the cops would just wave you through.
Suen Ko made millions within his first year.
I was good with computers, and I became his IT department. I helped him organize his production, and in return he gave me a handsome cut. I made quite a bit of money in my teens, but I quickly blew it all on drugs and girls.
The biggest eye opener was during the annual company dinner. They had to construct a tent hall on an empty field to fit all 5,000 of us in, and there were local politicians and community leaders on the front row tables. That drove in the impression of just how big the tree was, and how deep the roots went.
If I made the triads sound like corporations, that’s because that’s what they are. We were even registered with the Registrar of Companies as a multimedia company and we paid our taxes. The big bosses looked just like any other middle aged Chinese uncle you’d meet at the local supermarket. The best way to avoid detection is to be in plain sight and blend into the background. The so-called gangsters you see on the street strutting their stuff are amateurs; many of them are just aping what they see in the movies. The pros keep a low profile and get on with making money.
Once you go far enough up the hierarchy, violence is actually pretty rare. For the most part, being a triad is just like working in any other corporate job.
But when violence does occur at that level, it’s freaking terrifying.
Roundabout the end of my first year, there was a war. The politician who Suen Ko worked for was at odds with another politician from the same organization. There were a few shootings, grenade attacks, and choppings, but it didn’t affect me directly at first so I didn’t give much thought to it. Then a call came one night. All hands on deck. We dropped everything and converged on the HQ.
Pardon the expletive, but it was scary as fuck. There were a hundred or so of us milling about an office block, and someone started handing out machetes and sashimi knives. Suen Ko took me up to the office, and there were hard looking fuckers at every corner. The air was so full of cigarette smoke I could barely breathe. Everyone looked grim. Apparently we were expecting an attack.
I was a skinny teenager, and I was out of my depth. Till that point, I’d been involved on the white collar side of things. The guys I saw that night had the word hard etched on their faces. I’ve never felt more scared than I did that night.
We stayed there overnight, but no attack came so we went back to our branch office. They attacked us there. A dozen or so guys rushed in and we fought back with chairs, clubs, machetes, boxes of A4 paper, everything we could get our hands on. It was a hazy frantic panicky desperate fight for survival. We were cornered and if we lost it would’ve been game over. One of theirs died in the melee.
The police arrived fairly quickly and I went to jail for a bit. It was in a cell that I resolved that this life wasn’t for me. For some miraculous reason, I got off scot-free. I went home, packed my things, and left everything behind to start a new life.
So how did it feel like? Terrible.
It’s not a healthy way to live one’s life. It got to the point where I was so paranoid that whenever I went to a restaurant I’d sit facing the entrance so I’d know who was coming in. I saw potential threats everywhere, and I carried symptoms of PTSD for a long time afterwards.
It took me a very long time to put my past behind and to learn to live again without fear like a normal human being. I had cut off all ties with everyone I knew, and have difficulty trusting people. Till today I know many, but am close with very few.
If there’s any teenager reading this who is in a similar situation as I was, know that the world is vast and there are opportunities everywhere. The cool kids you see in school are anything but.
Don’t make the same mistakes I did
– Anonymous
Is it too late for the US to contain China? | The Bottom Line
What’s It Like To Date A Gold Digger?
When I was in my 20’s, I had a very, very beautiful woman wind up being the biggest gold-digger I ever went out with.
So let’s call her… Julie. Julie was a fitness contestant/exotic dancer with a body that stopped traffic. And while she had this super, over-the-top body, she also had over-sized implants that made her look like a real-life Jessica Rabbit, hair and everything. She stopped traffic, and that’s not an expression, cars literally slowed down or stopped to watch her walk down the street. She gave me a picture of her in a bikini. I would show my friends and most of them were in disbelief that I even knew her, let alone was going out with her.
And… how exactly did we meet? At a strip club of course. I was young and more naive than most, but it turned out we had mutual friends in common and we wound up spending a couple of hours together talking. We “seemed” to hit it off and have a lot in common… or so I thought.
At the end of the night, being the naive numb-skull that I was, I thought I actually had a chance with her, I asked her out. To my surprise, holy crap, she said yes— I was on Cloud Nine and couldn’t beliebe my luck. I’m not sure I even slept that night in anticipation of our first date.
However, I soon realized that one we did go out, every date suggestion she made (she always shot down what I wanted to do), was over-the-top. I was OK with that for our first date, and even our second, but soon realized that there was never an offer of a quiet evening at home or having an inexpensive dinner out, etc. Every date or date suggestion she had (and we had three dates) was a extravaganza that cost me well in excess of $500-$700.
Each time, it was the same; at the end of the date, we’d share a quick kiss and she’d find some reason she needed to go home ASAP. I began to sense I was being taken for a ride and decided to stop calling her.
But she wasn’t done with me… yet.
One day, she called and asked me what I was doing and wanted to get together. I was honest and told her she was kind of breaking me. Again, I was in my 20’s at the time, not making a lot of money, and this was killing my bank account.
Then she surprised me by offering me a quiet evening at my house, claiming that she wanted to make medinner. OK, this is better, I thought. And it was better… until about two hours before she was supposed to come over, when she called to inform me that her “Favorite comedian in the wooorrrld” was in town and for only “one more day. Can we PLEEEEEEASE do that instead??” She then threw in multiple references to the wild night at home we’d have later as a result. That was always her way; insinuate that you were going to have the time of your life with her later.
She could teach fisherman how to better bait a hook, she was that good at this.
OK, you probably get where this is going, right? Unfortunately, I didn’t. “Sure!” I said. Sounds great!! What time do you want to meet?” I should have known when she wanted to meet halfway what was coming.
Of course, she tells me that now that we’re doing this instead that we simply must go to her favorite local restaurant now (She “always went there first— it’s a tradition!”), and that came to $200+. Then front row tickets to the show plus drinks, and that came to another $300.
She’s also getting progressively drunk as the night goes on and is now telling me how her dress (a tight-fitting denim number with buttons from top to bottom on the front), “just pops right off… which is going to be really convenient.. tonight. Wink, wink.”
Ironically enough, while I certainly wanted to have sex with her, I also thought I liked her and that this might be a way for us to formalize a relationship. The show ends and we drive back to my house.
We get there, have drinks and talk for a few minutes about our the night. She seems to be having fun, and then suddenly and out of the blue… she totally clams up… and needs to leave “right away…” yet again. Something about not being comfortable that her car is parked in a public lot. Ironically, for being so hot, she drove a piece of crap econobox), which keep in mind, she hadn’t been concerned about all evening… that is until it was time for us to be romantic together.
Then it hits me– I’m totally being played by this gold-digger!! %(**@#&!!! And holy crap, she’s managed to do it to me… again!
I tell her she’s damn right she needs to leave right away, and that I will take her back to her car IMMEDIATELY. It was clear to me now… even naive twenty-something me. She was just using me to live the high life, couldn’t care less about me, and then once it was time to demonstrate that she actually liked me in some way, shape or form–and by that I mean even just some kissing and being openly affectionate- ran home.
I heard from other guys later that this was not uncommon for her, but that if that if you had enough money—and I’m talking private jet money—she actually would sleep with you. I also hear that these guys—the one’s who had that kind of money—used her just as much as she was using them, and threw her away when they were done with her.
Karma’s a bitch, right?
We drove back to her car in complete silence. It had been yet another expensive lesson, but this one stuck. I dropped her off without a word in the parking lot, pulled out before I saw her get in her car, and never spoke to her again.
– Errol Greene
IKEA Recreated Living Rooms From ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘Friends’ And ‘Stranger Things’ With Its Own Furniture
Ikea’s Billy bookcases, Poang chairs and Kallax shelves can be seen in real homes around the world, but they now have a place in the fictional living rooms of “The Simpsons,” “Stranger Things” and “Friends.”
The Simpsons
In the “Real Life Series” campaign running in the United Arab Emirates, Ikea, along with agency Publicis Spain, recreated iconic living rooms from each of the popular shows with only its own products. The campaign leverages the pop culture references with the aim to be relevant to all cultures, since the UAE is largely populated by expat families from all over the globe.
More: IKEA
“We brought to life the iconic living rooms of the most beloved families of all times, through tons of furniture combinations in lots of different styles and sizes – and at affordable prices. We’ve grouped all the products for each room for you, so it’s easy to recreate what you see here in your own home. Take a look and make your living room iconic with IKEA.”
Room for families
A living room is not just a place for families to get together and watch TV, it’s a place to share happy moments and have fun. And fun is what this room is all about. Combine new colourful and playful patterns and brighten-up your living room with your functional and favourite IKEA furniture pieces.
Friends
Room for mates
Whether you share the same surname or just each other’s companies on a regular basis. Family for IKEA goes beyond the traditional definition. And we also have rooms far from traditional to match that. Mix and match styles, throw some color in and build a comfy, flexible, friend-magnet living room to enjoy with your favourite people in the world.
Stranger Things
Room for everyone
Every living room tells a story of the family who lives there. And this one is not afraid to tell it out loud. So let your furniture do the talking. You can express your family’s romantic with a colourful string of lights or brag about your great book collection, perfectly organized on our display cases. Whatever your family loves, you’ll find a way to show it at IKEA.
What’s It Like To Own A Lamborghini?
I pondered this same question since I was 15. About 15 years later I am qualified to answer this. I’ve owned 2. 08 Gallardo and 2015 Huracan. How does it feel? I will break this down into two parts–from an automotive/mechanical perspective and an emotional/human perspective.
Both were V10’s and the moment you turned the key (or pressed the start button) you knew it was 10 cylinders. They were proper to use a bull for their logo because it sounds like a really pissed off bull being woken up too early on a Saturday morning each time you fire it up. Italians are about soul and lambos ooze soul compared to the other exotics and expensive cars I’ve owned. You feel alive when you drive them. Driving a lambo is a very visceral experience. It’s loud, and you can feel the engine rumbling through your bones as you shift (all paddle shift these days) and downshift. Everyone should experience a v10 downshifting hard through a tunnel at least once in their lives. Every drive is an experience and I would find myself with a big grin on my face any time I drove them.
A common misconception is that they’re expensive to maintain or are unreliable. 2005 and newer are head and shoulders above the pre 2005 models. Once Audi (or is it VW?) owned lamborghini and started sharing parts the car was so much better inside and out. Diablos and countach’s feel cheap and flimsy but the fit and finish after the gallardo came out is nice and tight like an Audi. Also I will say the AWD models make you feel like a great driver and safe even on wet surfaces.
Ok so here’s probably what you’re more interested in– what does it feel like, how do people react, etc. You’re going to get a lot of attention. I never had yellow or green or orange but those attract even more attention. Meaning when you drive it, expect at least a few people to take pics and/or video (while they have one hand on the wheel of their own car), people will try to race you, follow you, stare, honk their horn, give you thumbs up, etc. Sometimes it’s downright dangerous because they are paying attention to your car when they should be driving.
When you’re getting gas or stopped somewhere that’s when it can get awkward. Every week I’ll get a couple of questions that bug me:
“How much did that car cost?”
“So what do you do”
I don’t mind if you ask how fast it goes. Or if you can take a picture or look inside. I’ll even let people sit in it — all the time! But don’t ask me how much it costs. Just google it. And asking me what I do… As if you’re going to turn around and start doing it too? That’s like asking someone how much they make. You don’t want to know, trust me.
So I used to struggle with this and would try to avoid it. Now I just tell people. $285,000. Ok there. Are you happy now?
If you like the car you should see my house.
It’s a no-win situation. I tell you and it makes things weird or I don’t tell you and you think I’m a lambo driving asshole. Oh well, comes with the territory. I still don’t have a great way to handle that question.
People treat you like a celebrity (not justified) because of your car. Most people don’t know what kind of car it is. Most people have never seen one up close. Boys from the ages of 8-18 freak out — I did the same when I was their age.
Gas mileage sucks. 10mpg sounds about average.
Insurance is not that bad. I’m paying about $250 a month (over 25, no accidents, multiple car discount, etc). Not all insurance companies will cover lambos. Progressive does.
Cops. Beware. If you drive a lambo you are begging to get pulled over. That means you do one thing wrong: roll through a stop sign, run a yellow light, go 5mph over the speed limit, have an expired license plate, swerve in a lane (ESP at night), expect blue and red lights to come on especially if you aren’t in LA or Miami where they are common. Been pulled over 4 times in the lambos. 3 were fine. One was straight up harassment and I was scared. I won’t drink even a beer if I’m in the lambo, it’s just not worth it.
Overall I haven’t had that bad of an experience. It’s been positive and fun. I go to car shows. Take neighbors’ kids for rides. Answer everyone’s questions at gas stations and am as nice as I can be. I’ve been fortunate in my life and so I feel like it’s my job to share the car with people even if it’s just a selfie for a random stranger at the supermarket. (And yes I drive it to Kroger and yes a couple of bags of groceries fit in the trunk).
Lemon Bread (Denmark)
Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 6 tablespoons butter
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- Rind of 1 lemon
- Pinch of salt
Instructions
- Mix all ingredients together.
- Put into loaf pan.
- Bake at 375 degrees F for 1 hour or until done.
- Drizzle glaze made of juice of 1 lemon and 1/3 cup sugar over hot bread.
Russia Abandoning Last Remaining Nuclear Arms Treaty?!
Confessions From The Sociopath Community
1. It’s like everyone is a puppet and the world is a game. the rules are to manipulate the puppets in order to win the game for yourself. some puppets get in the way so they have to be removed others are more useful.
You gotta play the long game tho because you never know when someone might become useful again later. some puppets live some die, it’s just all part of the process. none of that affects me on the inside. Hack the system and achieve your short and long term goals. puppets are just part of the system.
Love doesn’t feel like a thing, it’s just usefulness of ppl. same with loyalty. It’s all temporary depending on usefulness of the puppet.
2. I feel like I don’t give a shit about 90% of things unless they’re directly affecting me. I find it really hard to relate to people and expressing my emotions because I don’t feel anything. Especially when consoling someone and you have to fake being upset too when deep down I couldn’t care less.
3. I spent a good chunk of my youth doing things because i thought they were right but i never really felt it, when i did a good deed i thought i was doing it to be nice but really i was looking for the reward of looking like a better person or maybe a physical reward like money etc, i dont believe now that selfless good deeds really do exist, instead i see selfish actions that can benefit others. When i study people i start to wonder if they are aware of this deep down and feel the same way or if they really think they are doing good, my mother is someone who goes out of her way to help people, i dont know if she realises but she is definitely rewarded with things like a thank you that makes her feel better or the thought that she has impressed someone, the thing i wonder is whether she is actively seeking these gratifications and is either aware of it or in denial about it or if someone can really just be a good person. I dont know if i’m just cynical but i think the normal people are just in this mental matrix, i think they are all sociopaths to some extent who have there human suits stuck on and we are just the ones that have woken up and have the understanding about what we really are.
4. We have spent our whole lives teaching ourselves to avoid detection and give a reasonable appearance of normalcy. I’m sure we’ve all had breakthrough moments of “oh, that’s how you perform a warm smile!” or “shit! you mean I’m not supposed to hold eye contact without blinking if I want people to feel comfortable loaning me money?”
5. Everytime I search something about psychopathy, sociopathy or NPD, I come across thousands of shit posts with huge bold headlines like ” How to avoid being in a relationship with a sociopath 101.” which usually follows with something like ” when narcs and other abusers go on ATTACK blah blah blah”. Ya’ll do realize sociopathy or psychopathy and npd have some huge differences right? Sure we are the bad ones but even then, it’s a disorder for god’s sake, stop victimizing yourself and stop believing that ya’ll are the “better humans”. Not every abuser is a sociopath or a psychopath and not every psychopath or sociopath is an abuser. Sure, there’s a huge possibility that your relationship with someone with aspd or npd (even bpd) can turn sour and toxic but we’re not monsters that’ll crawl out of the closet to ruin you. Please stop throwing the term around like a slang, being a sociopath isn’t funny nor is it a slang. Again, just because someone doesn’t give a fuck about your feelings doesn’t mean they have aspd.
6. Sociopathy takes away from the things of life that (I’m assuming) make it interesting. If your best friend gets engaged, you feel nothing. If your significant other gets a new job or a promotion, you feel nothing. If your sibling graduates, you feel nothing.
And I’m not saying “feel nothing” as in you feel ‘numb’ when good things happen to others, but more in the sense that events like those literally have 0 effect on your mood and how you feel.
This makes life pretty boring after a while, because the only things that affect how you feel are the things that affect you directly. And I mean, how many truly interesting things happen to each of us on a daily basis? I’m willing to bet not that many.
So from what I can tell, while NT’s might feel depressed or guilty every time they read the news/something bad happens to someone close to them, they also feel happy and excited when positive things happen to those close to them. Essentially, their emotions and thoughts are almost always being stimulated by events happening around them, good or bad. Meanwhile a sociopath is affected by neither; the only thing that could possibly make a sociopath’s day more eventful would be if something happened that directly affected them.
A sociopath’s world is a selfish one, and unless you have a wildly eventful and crazy life, that world can be pretty boring.
7. There are various cultural and personal reasons behind this assessment. 1. People tend to naturally demonise people with ASPD. I know it has been echoed into their heads by pop culture, and so it makes it much harder to be open about it. They treat it as if people with ASPD are responsible for having it. Which brings me to- 2. It is really lonely. People think being manipulative, or even having a non-emotional assessment of any situation is in itself a threat. They hate blatantly true people. And if you tell them such disregard is an outcome of your “sociopathy” it’s like a trigger word for danger. 3. You get bored when you don’t want to, really quick. Especially of people. You perpetually feel like you don’t fit in. And even if you are aware of your exact emotional state, you can often do nothing about it. This has made me crush so many relationships, simply because I was bored. Even if I didn’t want to. Something personal here- it is really regrettable for me. But I often distance myself emotionally as a precautionary measure so that I don’t end up hurting someone else’s feelings. And this has been getting on my nerve for a while now. 4. There’s trauma. Often unspoken trauma inside that rarely gets attention in the midst of all the ‘lack of empathy’ hysteria.
These are the ones I had personally been suffering with. I have both Bipolar I and ASPD so I think something may be on the BPD side. Even so, I have couple of friends who have BPD yet they experience a much more welcoming social structure. This is why I often do not even mention ASPD. At the end of the day, it feels like you are cornered. And that in any case is the worst situation for those on the ASPD spectrum.
8. When I do something wrong I get this anxiety that I’ll be caught and/or people will look down on me for it. I don’t actually feel guilt. I honestly think I’m above the law and should be able to do whatever I want but I know that’s not idealistic.
9. The way you feel about objects like the floor, walls, cars, trees, etc is probably how I feel about them, but I feel the same about people and pets as I do about inanimate objects: they’re useful, nice, can be something sentimental, or something to have fun with.
Empanadas (Meat Pies – Argentina)
Ingredients
Dough
- 1/2 pound cold salted butter or margarine
- 6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 to 1 cup cold water
Beef Filling
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 4 medium onions, peeled and chopped
- 1 1/2 pounds ground chuck
- 2 sweet roasted pimento, drained and chopped
- 1/2 cup dark seedless raisins
- 4 large eggs, hard-cooked, peeled and chopped
- 24 small green pitted olives
- 1 1/2 teaspoons oregano
- 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
- Pinch of black pepper
- 1 tablespoon salt
Instructions
- Dough: Cut butter into pieces. Using an electric mixer, mix with flour and salt. Gradually add 3/4 cup water. Mix for 6 minutes. Dough should form a ball. Pat into round shape. Place dough in plastic bag and keep at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes.
- Divide dough in half and knead for 2 minutes. Roll out on lightly floured surface to a thickness of 1/8-inch and 5 1/2-inches in diameter. This should make enough for 24 circles.
- Beef Filling: Heat oil in skillet and sauté onion until bright yellow. Add beef, stirring until beef loses its red color. Stir in pimento, raisins, oregano, paprika and salt and continue sauté ing for 2 minutes. Drain off excess oil; chill in refrigerator for 1 hour.
- Stir in chopped eggs just before filling the dough. Reserve olives to add to each empanada.
- Preparing the Empanada: Heat oven to 450 degrees F.
- Place 4 tablespoons of filling on each circle of dough. Insert 1 olive into each mound of filling. If dough is dry, moisten with cold water. Fold dough in half. Press down firmly just below the mound of filling. Turn edge over, pressing down firmly just below the mound of filling. Turn edge over, pressing down firmly. Then working from left to right; crimp and pleat in points to seal edges. Brush each empanada with glaze made of 1 egg, beaten with 1/2 teaspoon sugar.
- Place empanadas 1-inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Yield: about 24
Leftover baked empanadas can be stored in the refrigerator and reheated for 10 minutes at 350 degrees F.
What Is It Like To Be A Trophy Wife?
I spend a lot of time complaining to myself and my friends (girlfriends and guy friends) about my life but overall it is good. I would not trade it for the alternative if that’s what you mean.
The good parts:
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- I love him, for real. Sure, I won’t lie that him being successful didn’t influence my decision to date him and later when he proposed it was a no-brainer, but there isn’t a single girlfriend of mine or woman I ever talked to honestly who didn’t want an older man with a good job and money. So it’s not a loveless marriage or a marriage of convenience, I fell in love with a man who happens to have a lot of money, and that’s still one of the things that makes me happiest about my life, having met someone who I love so much and who loves me, despite our age differences and whatever else.
- Never having to worry about paying for things. I had a $27,000/year job trying to do writing for small (often failing) newspapers in a big city before I met him, sharing an apartment with a friend. I spent the money I made on my wardrobe and shoes and hair (and I guess I’m glad I did) but a couple months choosing between rent and utilities like phone or heat was a real issue. I know a lot of people think self-respect and making your own way is a big thing (including me) but I do not want to go back to that life.
- He makes a lot of money. I mean a lot. I literally could not believe it when I first began to understand, but pretty much unless I want to buy a house or a very expensive car (like a Ferrari, not a Lexus) I don’t have to worry about the price ever. It’s nice being able to shop all you want and he is more than happy to provide so that I look my best. And what girl doesn’t want to look good? Especially since her man is the one who appreciates her more than anyone?
- I get to associate with a lot of interesting people. I was raised with good middle-class manners, so I can get along passably with “high society” especially since many of the people he socializes with at work-related events are self-made and not “blue-blood European old money” types, so I get to meet lots of interesting and accomplished people and their spouses. Much more interesting than my slacker friends who I feel a bit bad not talking to as often but the truth is that a lot of my friends from high school are still doing nothing with their lives and smoking pot and these people aren’t (as much, or as openly).
Now the bad parts:
- People (including yourself) judging me. There is always an unspoken feeling of disapproval about what I’ve done or the arrangement we have, even if both of us are happy. It’s obvious that society frowns on this sort of thing and feels like a talented young woman with a college degree should be making her own way instead of stopping out and becoming a kept woman. Probably my own worst critic is myself to be honest.
- Not really feeling like I truly own anything. The most expensive thing I’ve ever owned myself was a used car I bought for $2400 with money I earned at my first job out of school. I loved that car, but it made too much sense to trade it in when he bought me a much, much nicer new car many years later as a birthday present. Everything else, even if it’s something I’ve picked out myself that he could never have any use for (like shoes, jewelry, makeup, accessories) still feels like it doesn’t belong to me because it’s really his money. Most days I try not to think about this and it’s all right but occasionally it comes to mind.
- I feel like I have to keep the marriage together. It does feel a bit like a hostage situation, because I know if things were to break up, I would lose a lot of this. Yes I would be entitled to some of his stuff, but he is the one who has powerful lawyer friends so it probably wouldn’t turn out well for me. We don’t have children yet (but we are talking about it) so there wouldn’t be any child support. I’ve met some wives and ex-wives of his friends and the ex-wives say that in a divorce situation I will do okay but not great, and if I love him I should do my best for the marriage especially if we have kids (obviously).
All in all I can say that obviously we would like to be completely independent and financially-secure women but if life finds us in a situation where we are a trophy wife there are worse things that can happen to us.
– Anonymous
35 Eerie Photos Of Abandoned Malls That Are Now Ruins Of A Lost Era
Empty malls across America are being abandoned at a staggering rate. But instead of demolishing these dead malls, most cities are allowing them to rot and be reclaimed by nature.
All things must come to an end, and the era of the American shopping mall is no exception. Brick and mortar retail shops — especially niche stores — are becoming increasingly unprofitable. As a result, empty and abandoned malls are now almost everywhere. And whether they’re left to be overtaken by nature or simply remain frozen in time, these dead malls are equally mesmerizing and unnerving.
Malls enjoyed a booming heyday in the 1970s and 1980s — even as the economy was tanking. This was when the wealthy (and usually white) people migrated away from urban zones and into the suburbs. They purchased glistening new homes and went shopping to fill their spacious rooms and closets.
Malls became cultural symbols of the time, as well as marketplaces. The wide variety of goods in one place was like a Sears catalog come to life. Add in the social gathering aspect, and it’s easy to see how the mall became as iconic as it did.
The media reflected this, as many films — especially ones from the 1980s and 1990s — heavily feature shopping malls as important locations. Mallrats, Clueless, The Blues Brothers, and Dawn of the Dead all have characters who spend major time in malls (though one just happens to be filled with zombies).
Today, as abandoned malls have become the norm, the very notion of these indoor shopping centers has taken on an entirely different character. Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl, says, “For kids of the ’80s especially, dead malls have a very strong allure. We were the last of the free-range kids, roaming around malls, not really buying anything, but just looking. To see all those big looming spaces so empty now — it’s a childhood haunting.”
What Shopping Centers Were Like Before The Era Of Dead Malls
The idea of the American mall began in Minnesota, and that’s where it reached its peak.
Edina, Minnesota is home to the very first enclosed shopping mall. Designed by Victor Gruen in 1956, the Southdale Mall is a climate-controlled complex. It has a central atrium, two floors, and escalators.
Gruen wanted to recreate the pedestrian experience of European cities by designing a place for the community in the deserts of suburbia. Americans were enthralled by their automobiles, and the mall would be primarily used for shopping, but also for relaxation, green space, food, and fun.
Until this first enclosed shopping mall, retail areas were characteristically extroverted. They had separate windows and entrances. The new malls were introverted: Everything was focused on the inside.
Not everyone was a fan of this concept. “You should have left downtown downtown,” architect Frank Lloyd Wright grumpily proclaimed during his visit to Southdale.
It has undergone numerous renovations and store closings over the years, but when Southdale first opened, it was downright glamorous. It cost $20 million, which went a long way back in 1956.
Minnesota also hosts one of the biggest malls in the nation, and it attracts approximately 40 million visitors a year. The gigantic Mall of America takes up 96.4 acres — enough to fit seven Yankee Stadiums inside. This may seem like it’d be an environmental disaster, but the mall does its part to be green.
With no central heating, indoor temperatures are maintained year-round with solar energy, skylights, and lighting. More than 30,000 live plants act as natural air purifiers, which is helpful as the mall is large enough to require its own zip code.
Both Southdale and The Mall of America still stand today, but whether or not they’ll survive the culling of retail chains, or succumb and become dead malls, remains to be seen.
Why Abandoned Malls Are Everywhere Today
The insane popularity of the mall ultimately meant that corporations built too many of them. “Developers realized they could put a large, flat building in the middle of a field and quickly make money — so for decades… that’s what they did,” notes Amanda Nicholson, a professor of retail practice at Syracuse University.
But they didn’t account for one thing: the invention of the internet.
Online shopping meant you could get virtually anything you needed without leaving the comfort of your home. So malls that were trying to survive during the start of the online shopping boom never stood a fighting chance.
Not really true. Malls are everywhere in the rest of the world, and they use the Internet extensively. -MM
Of course, now customers are no longer wanting to keep their shopping introverted, as was the mall’s design. Products are tied to influencers in a world with instant access to everything. Deliveries and un-boxings have become YouTube “haul” videos as attention is bought and sold like currency.
Who needs to “be seen” by locals at a likely empty mall when the whole world is now your oyster?
It’s also arguable that malls aren’t actually dying at the same rate they once were. Some believe that malls are evolving — and offering experiences and amenities you can’t replicate online. Millennials and Gen X-ers express the desire to spend their money on experiences, rather than on material goods.
Whatever the case, the abandoned malls of yesterday aren’t likely to be renovated. They’ll probably be leveled to make way for the next Southdale, or the next big, glamorous advance in commerce.
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