Have you noticed all those “undersea earthquakes” lately? Pretty unusual to have so many. And of such size. It’s almost like there are big explosions under the ocean.
Don’t you know…
The passivity of the UK population in face of the sickening posture of their government towards Russia comes from absence of awareness .The entire UK press supports war .The BBC is snidely pro war . If a Member of Parliament is petitioned he or she will always respond with the standard ' party ' position - which position is that of a poodle of America . Posted by: kildownman | May 15 2023 21:40 utc | 113
There was a promotion on Taobao for a new medicine.
This medicine was to help you lose weight, and since (I started taking my blood pressure pills) I have been dealing with a change in body chemistry. My body is “slower” , and I am gaining weight far quicker than I used to.
So my wife thought for that for 50 yuan (seven US dollars) we should try it.
The way it works is to prevent the absorption of oils from food. So you can eat all the greasy food you want, or saucy food, or cheese. But the oils are not absorbed. Instead, they are shit out when you go to the bathroom.
Now, the medicine does work! It really does. I went to the shitter and lo and behold! There were all sorts of “bubbles” of greasy reddish oils floating in the toilet. It really works. I mean wow!
There bright red balls of oil; tens of them. All ranging in size from the size of a piece of corn to a small dime.
It definitely works.
But…
For three days after I took that one singular capsule (before I ate lunch)… I was still shitting out the oil. I guess you could say that I got my moneys worth eh? I think I must have shit out about a pint of oil.
More or less.
Well…
Two problems.
Problem one. It causes your belly to fill up and look like a basketball. This has the positive effect of making your stomach crushed, and you have absolutely no appetite. But it also makes you look much fatter than you actually are. Suddenly your waist is twice the size and it does look like you are carrying a baby.
Not so good if you are a man. Maybe a chick can get away with the pregnancy look. But, not a guy.
So that is one problem.
Now for the really serious problem…
Problem Two.
You leak.
All the oil just slithers and seeps out via the buttox.It slithers out. It’s oily. Right? So it just slithers out no matter how tightly you clench your butt.
You become an old car that is leaking oil.
And the inside of your garage gets dirty and grimy with old oil.
But, you are not a car.
So your underwear gets completely soaked with oil. Not water.
Oil.
It’s a non-stop seepage (of sewage) that seems to last for days. Shit! I have to change my underwear about ten times a day… or wear diapers! WTF?
And it fucking stinks!
I think that it is removing all the oils in my body for the last decade. That stuff is foul. F-O-U-L. Yuck.
I have no words for the horrendous malodorous stink that fumes from you.
I think that this medicine is great for the really obese and fat person. Especially one that is confined to a home, or a clinic. But it is not for someone like myself. An active person who is out and about all day. I’ll tell you what.
Sigh.
I’m not taking anymore.
Does anyone want this medicine, I’ll send it to you.
…
I have talked about some ED medicines, and some alcohol related medicines. This is my story of some weight reduction medicine.
I just wanted to share.
Now, that I have completely repelled everyone visiting MM with my tales of oily rectal discharge, let’s begin todays post…
This is how they treat a black girl in China.
In the Right
China is in the right. China is doing the right thing. If you are not going to obey the law, and PARTICIPATE in society, you should not come to China. China is a peaceful land because of it’s LAWS and because of it’s society. If you have intentions to change that, then you must suffer the consequences. Obey Chinese laws. Participate in society. make a positive difference in the world around you, or suffer the consequences.
US ‘disappointed’ by Chinese court’s decision to uphold death sentence for American citizen
Very few Americans, x00:1 compared to the number of naturalized mainlanders stateside, reside permanently in China because China does not have an active immigration policy.
Most are therefore guests of the state.
And guests of ANY state should be acutely aware of the responsibility they must bear in a jurisdiction separate and independent from what they are used to. For example, there is no king stateside but there are lèse-majesté laws in Thailand. Insult the king and it’s a one-way trip to unpleasant penitentiary.
Will america be disappointed with the Thai when they enforce lese-majeste on Americans?
On to the case.
The same “arbitrary” accusation is repeated in the article, but it isn’t quoting the State Department. Instead, the “UN HRC” makes an appearance. This branch of the UN has made numerous condemnation of the death sentence, including Singapore’s, which require capital offenses to be heard in High Court and guilty verdicts automatically appealed at the Court of Appeal, a multi-year, multi-million dollar process.
The first world still see the third as unevolved humanity, and its rightful place as subservience to White interest. The honest ones, like Justin, openly say it. The rest leave it unspoken, but their attitudes betray the bias.
Don’t like Chinese law? Don’t go to China. It’s not your home, and if you choose to go, do so in the full knowledge that a foreign passport isn’t carte blanche to throw reason and discipline away on the mainland.
Like most things in life, one reaps what he sows, unless reality is suspended, somehow.
China is saying, enough. We are rolling up the red carpet, and giving you a taste of bitter reality.
Is the Russian S-400 system invincible?
The S-400 is a Russian SAM system that terrifies many countries. But there are those who doubt that any weapon is powerless against it. Using the example of American military hardware, a Chinese Internet user tells how the S-400 could be destroyed. However, this is no more than one assumption….
Iron Pegasus (铁戈飞马)
The Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system is indeed an unprecedentedly powerful air defense system. It is incredibly powerful and truly poses a serious threat to the U.S. Air Force.
The S-400 is equipped with four missiles of various ranges, including the 40H6 with a range of 400 kilometers, the 48H6E3 with a range of 250 kilometers, the 9M96E2 with a range of 120 kilometers and the 9M96E short-range. The S-400 missile armament forms a three-tiered circle of air defense.
The main power of the SAM is expressed in its ability to integrate with electronic warfare systems. Among Russian weapons systems it is one of the rare systems capable of withstanding an attack by an EA-18G Growler electronic warfare plane. This has already been proven on the battlefield in Syria. The EA-18G’s electronic warfare suppression is practically ineffective against the S-400, and the Growler cannot get closer to the target than 400 kilometers with the S-400 in position.
This means that within the effective combat range of the S-400, U.S. military aircraft that are not stealthy will have to stay away from the S-400. This complicates the battlefield environment because Russian aircraft and helicopters can also provide fire support to their ground forces.
The S-400 does not perform combat operations on its own. Its data link can be linked to and routed to long-range radar detection and targeting aircraft, early warning satellites, and S-300 systems on the battlefield. This forms a huge network of anti-aircraft crossfire, and in this fan-shaped area of air defense, U.S. military aircraft will have difficulty surviving.
But will the U.S. military really be helpless in such a situation? It’s not that clear-cut. If the F-35 can withstand considerable damage from the air defense system, it is quite capable of destroying the S-400.
Thus, the US military should send several F-35s (10 aircraft?) carrying electronic warfare units and JDAM or SDB to, relying on the stealth of the fighters, approach the S-400 positions and then destroy the SAMs. However, this operation requires many EA-18Gs for cover to create interference with the range signal of the Pantzir-S1 SAMs, because that is the biggest threat the F-35 currently faces when approaching the S-400.
Numerous drones will then begin to eliminate any other ground-based air defense systems. During this battle, both sides will suffer heavy losses: the F-35, EA-18G and UAVs will be destroyed, but there is a high probability that the Russian S-400 air defense missile system will also be wiped out.
However, all this is only theoretical, and in reality this may not happen, because Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons if it considers that it is threatened by a real danger…
I would like to add for myself. Even the most advanced weapons cannot be invulnerable all the time. There will be vulnerabilities and flaws in any weapon. As we say in Russia: “There is no limit to perfection…”
Designers do not stand still. All their products have combat support. Any equipment failures and errors show up in tests and in real combat. In new samples these deficiencies are eliminated, and already manufactured products are upgraded. I was lucky enough to undergo diploma practice in the design department of one of the research institutes in Tula back in 1973. I would like to note that there are people there who are passionate about their profession and keenly perceive mistakes and failures. They are ready to work around the clock to bring their “baby” to perfection.
So, our enemies beware! Behind our warriors stand great engineers, designers and workers…
An honest look at Apartments in China
Loozensky fired 6% of PAC-3 annual production worth 150 million dollars in 120 seconds
The Kremlin’s air missile attack in the early morning of May 16 against Kyiv opens another topic for discussion. According to claims on the web, the Ukroid MIM-104 Patriot fired 30 interceptor missiles.
According to official data from Lockheed Martin published in 2022, the company annually produces about 500 PAC-3 missiles. I.e. Kyiv fired six percent of its annual production of interceptor missiles in two minutes [120 seconds] over Kyiv before the system was damaged.
Lockheed Martin reached full-rate production of the PAC-3 MSE missile only in 2018, although production of the missile dates back to at least 2014. One year later, that is. In 2019, the Pentagon decided to assign Lockheed Martin to increase production. It was in 2019 that the decision was made to produce 500 PC-3 MSEs each year.
Experts know that the Patriot’s interception principle is slightly different than, say, Israel’s Iron Dome. To intercept and destroy one missile, the Patriot fires two interceptors. Also unlike Iron Dome, the Patriot’s interceptors operate on the principle of direct body-to-body contact. This is a much more difficult interception than the Iron Dome, where the Israeli missile self-detonates when it aligns with the enemy missile.
Perhaps direct body-to-body contact is one of the reasons why the Patriot is not so successful. The 30 missiles fired on May 16 over Kyiv indicate that the system was engaged with at least a minimum of 15 air targets. In addition to video footage of the attack, evidence of the intense airstrike is the expert opinions of some experts who say the Patriot was attacked by a variety of attack vectors.
It is the direct body-to-body contact of the interceptor that casts deep doubt on the ability of the PAC-3 SME to make contact with a hypersonic missile. But at the same time, if Kyiv’s claims that they shot down 6 Kinzhals are confirmed [so far there is no evidence of this], then many questions remain unanswered on this account.
If Kyiv relies on one Patriot, and the other air defense systems [if any in the area] are not involved in covering the Russian air missile attack, this will be a serious problem not only for Loozensky but also for the production capabilities of the US, which will reflect on the Patriot operators.
27 countries signed agreement with China allowing C191 flying domestically without US and EU safety approval.
This is a signifigant event. Nations are now starting to say “no, to United States requirements, and regulations” that they used to “rubber stap” and implement
27国与中国签署协议,不用欧美适航证,国产大飞机C919飞出国门|c919|波音|空客|适航证|飞机_手机网易网
How much fear should the US have from Russia now that no Air Defence system can stop the Russian super hyper sonic missiles that no one have but Russia?
You should learn to stop worrying and love the bomb. American leaders have set the US on course with oblivion. They aren’t going to stop now. Just enjoy the time you have left with your family and accept it. The psychopaths won. You lost.
Either way, the people of the US aren’t going to make it.
American “news” reports on China…
What are some examples of sanctions against China? Do you think they are effective?
Do you know the best way to get Chinese to work hard to get a new technology product out?
SANCTION THEM.
When a big western country very loudly says that Chinese companies cannot have access to certain technologies and products, that big western country is doing the work which the Chinese government cannot do: getting smart hard-working people to focus their minds on overcoming a technical challenge so that China can move up the value chain.
The Chinese are like that: they don’t complain, they don’t cry or any of that stuff. They just think: “You know what? Not only are we going to master your technology, we are going to make it better, faster and cheaper than you can, and then we are going to sell it all over the world.”
So while the Chinese government is very unhappy with what the big western country is doing to Chinese companies, they are smart enough to understand that it is just another hill to climb in order to make China a technology leader.
By sanctioning Chinese companies, the big western country is telling the Chinese exactly what technologies they need to master in order to become the world’s technology leader.
Could China ask for more?
MAY 18, 2023 ALGORA BLOG 3
by Staff Members via Military Watch Magazine
On May 16 as part of a complex series of strikes on the Ukrainian capital Kiev the Russian Air Force employed the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missile to neutralise a unit from an American Patriot air defence system, destroying its a radar and a control centre and reportedly at least one of its launchers. According to Russian sources, the Ukrainian crew operating the Patriot were aware a strike was incoming, but had only a limited warning time due to the Kinzhal missile’s very high speed – limiting opportunities for the missile system to change position or reload. The Patriot system targeted was one of two delivered, with Germany and the United States having each supplied a single unit. The unit reportedly fired 32 surface to air missiles at the Kinzhal on approach, which at approximately $3 million each amounted to a $96 million barrage to attempt to destroy a missile with an estimated cost of under $2 million. The very high cost and limited number of the Patriot’s interceptors was a key argument for not sending
the systems to Ukraine, with their effectiveness also having been brought to question not only due to the system’s highly troubled combat record, but also to the advanced capabilities of new Russian missiles such as the Kinzhal, Iskander and Zicron. These are considered nearly impossible to intercept particularly in their terminal stages. The delivery of Patriots was nevertheless seen as necessary due to the near collapse of Ukrainian air defences, as warnings have been given with growing frequency by both Western and Ukrainian sources that the arsenal of S-300 and BuK missile systems protecting the country has become critically depleted
Missile Batteries From Patriot Air Defence System
Destruction of the Patriot systems comes less than a month after the first systems were delivered in April
, and follows a warning in December from Russian President Vladimir Putin that the destruction of the systems was an absolute certainty should they be deployed in Ukraine. He assured that with Washington “now saying that they can put a Patriot [in Ukraine]. Okay, let them do it. We will crack the Patriot [like a nut] too, and something will need to be installed in its place, new systems need to be developed – this is a complex and lengthy process” – indicating that NATO had no newer generations of long range air defence systems available to replace the Patriot once its vulnerability was demonstrated. “Our adversaries proceed from the idea that this is supposedly a defensive weapon. All right, we’ll keep that in mind. And an antidote can always be found,” Putin added. The United States notably reassured Russia in December that Patriot systems would not be manned by American personnel, which was interpreted by some sources as an effective green light to proceed with strikes. With Ukrainian personnel expected to take until 2024
to learn to operate Patriots, they are thought to have been manned by contractors from NATO member states who are already acquainted with the systems.
Russian MiG-31K Strike Fighter with Kinzhal Ballistic Missile
The Kizhal missile used to neutralise the Patriot battery entered service in the Russian Military in late 2017, and was first employed
in the Russian-Ukrainian War on March 18 2022 to strike a large underground warehouse in Western Ukraine housing armaments recently delivered through Poland. The missile has been a weapon of choice for striking high priority targets far behind Ukrainian lines due to its combination of a very long range and a high performance, where surface launched Iskander missiles with some similar capabilities were designed with only a 500km range due to the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty which both Moscow and Washington were parties to until 2019. The Kinzhal has been widely deployed since 2017 in newly created squadrons of MiG-31K and MiG-31I strike fighters, which have consistently been stationed in areas of high tensions with NATO including Syria, Belarus, Kaliningrad and the Arctic. The MiG-31 has emerged as a star performer in the Russian-Ukrainian War not only due to its contributions to strike missions, but also to the performance of MiG-31BM/BSM interceptor variants which a number of Western sources have reported to be a strongly felt presence in the air which has caused serious losses for Ukrainian aviation. The possibility remains that the sole remaining Patriot battery will be a priority target either for MiG-31K/I strike fighters or for other Russian assets.
Best of Larry, Darryl, and Darryl (part 24)
By Conor Gallagher
Despite French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent statements that Europe not be a US vassal, the EU continues to follow Washington down the path of confrontation with China.
EU foreign ministers met on Friday and backed a more hardline position on China; now they just need to to figure out how to put it into practice, foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said. The ministers agreed that coordination with the United States will “remain essential” as they work to, as President Ursula von der Leyen put it recently, “de-risk” from China.
Well now it looks like those efforts are starting to get mighty risky as the European Commission is also discussing slapping sanctions on eight Chinese companies Brussels accuses of aiding the Russian war effort by sending dual-use goods like microchips to Moscow. There’s also talk of introducing a new mechanism that would restrict EU exports to countries that flout sanctions (a final decision isn’t expected until later this month or potentially June).
Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang happened to be in Berlin when news broke of the potential sanctions, which led to the second war-of-words appearance in a month of him and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock who continues to do her best to damage ties between Berlin and its largest trading partner.
While Qin stressed China’s neutrality and its efforts to formulate a peace plan, Baerbock insisted neutrality is not an option. “Neutrality means taking the side of the aggressor,” she told Qin while also labeling China a “systemic rival.” Qin assured his counterpart that Beijing would retaliate if the EU moves forward with its plans to sanction the Chinese companies. Beijing has a wide range of options at its disposal to hit back at the EU, as Reuters notes:
Beijing has plenty of leverage. At $5 trillion in 2021, China’s manufacturing value-added is roughly equal to the United States and Europe combined
. It cranks out critical industrial widgets including mid-range chips, makes most of the world’s active pharmaceutical ingredients, and hosts global competitors in high-speed rail and clean energy, including nuclear. It is the leading miner and processor of rare earths, which are used in everything from batteries to guided missiles; last year it manufactured over 90% of the world’s solar power wafers.
At the same time, Beijing is still dreaming that somehow wiser minds prevail and the EU will free itself from the US’ grasp. China is hoping that France and Germany can get on the same page and create some sort of European strategic autonomy. We’ll see what Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz come out with after a scheduled meeting in July. It’s doubtful they’ll muster enough mettle to stop the wheels in motion. Scholz, after all, doesn’t seem to be running much of the show in Germany. For whatever reason, he cedes those duties to his Green partners in government, Baerbock and economic minister Robert Habeck – who are like German versions of US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
China will likely continue to go soft on any response measures while holding out hope that Europe can be peeled away from the US. From the South China Morning Post:
Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang has warned that the real “risk” Europe
faces comes from “a certain country” that is waging a “new cold war”, imposing unilateral sanctions and exporting its own financial problems to others.
Qin did not mention the US by name, but accused the country in question of fomenting ideological confrontation and engaging in camp confrontation, when asked about the EU’s “de-risking” strategy…
Qin said he appreciated the stance of Berlin and Brussels, but raised Beijing’s concerns that the strategy could become a “de-sinicisation” of the continent that would cut opportunities, cooperation, stability and development.
Indeed, that is what is slowly happening. While the EU plays with semantics (de-risk vs. decouple) the playbook is eerily similar to the one the EU followed with Moscow. With Russia it was the stated fear of energy reliance; with China officials like Baerbock and von der Leyen claim Europe is too dependent tradewise.
Fair enough, but do they have any plans for self-dependence beyond magical thinking? Similar to the Russia escapade, the line of thinking seems to be to do what the Americans say and figure it out on the fly. That usually doesn’t work out well:
Prior to her humiliating trip to China, von der Leyen elaborated on her China “de-risking” strategy in March in a speech on EU-China relations at the Mercator Institute for China Studies and the European Policy Centre. Some excerpts on Europe’s plans:
The starting point for this is having a clear-eyed picture on what the risks are. That means recognising how China’s economic and security ambitions have shifted. But it also means taking a critical look at our own resilience and dependencies, in particular within our industrial and defence base. This can only be based on stress-testing our relationship to see where the greatest threats lie concerning our resilience, long-term prosperity and security. This will allow us to develop our economic de-risking strategy across four pillars. The first one is: making our own economy and industry more competitive and resilient.
Von der Leyen proceeds to tout the bloc’s Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA), which aims for the EU to process 40 percent of the strategic raw materials it uses by 2030. The NZIA would allow projects to bypass many environmental and social impact reviews. But the proposals do not earmark any new money, and the policies do nothing to change Europe’s disadvantages, which include a lack of subsidies compared to the US and China and much higher energy costs thanks to their “de-risking” away from Russian energy. More from von der Leyen:
We know this is an area where we rely on one single supplier – China – for 98% of our rare earth supply, 93% of our magnesium and 97% of our lithium – just to name a few…This is why we have put forward the Critical Raw Materials Act to help diversify and secure our supply.
The Critical Raw Materials Act would allow the EU to label some projects as “strategic” and fast-track the permitting process so that processing facilities could be granted approval in less than 12 months, and mines could theoretically be operational within 24 months (compared to an average of 10 years today).
Von der Leyen goes on to say that the EU will consider restrictions on outbound investment to China and that a major part of the de-risking strategy is alignment with partners, i.e., the US. She also promoted the bloc’s Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI), which aims to take countermeasures against outside countries that attempt to pressure bloc states using the member states’ economic dependencies. The ACI allows the EU to retaliate with import tariffs, trade restrictions, or public procurement measures.
In the winter of 2021, China enacted trade sanctions against Lithuania after the latter allowed a de facto Taiwanese embassy to open up shop in Vilnius. There is a possibility the EU could start using the ACI right out of the gate in response to the China-Lithuania spat. From Euractiv:
Lithuania, therefore, was a strong supporter of the new instrument. Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis called it a tool “to stop dictators bullying the EU with unofficial sanctions” in a tweet celebrating the agreement between member states and the Parliament. “The EU just got stronger,” he said.
However, it is unclear whether the instrument will be used against China for its coercion attempts against Lithuania. An EU official showed himself rather reticent about the idea of opening negotiations on cases in the past, while the European Parliament’s Bernd Lange argued that it should also be applied to this case.
Lange has said that “sometimes you have to put a gun on the table, even when you know that you might not use it.” In response to the very limited economic fallout in Lithuania due to the Chinese sanctions, the European Commission provided low-cost loans to affected businesses, and the US Export-Import Bank threw in a $600 million export credit agreement.
If this is sounding familiar for Europe, that’s because it’s following the same blueprint it did with Russia. European officials repeatedly claim they learned from the error of their ways in importing cheap Russian gas and promise they won’t make the same mistake with products from China. Should they have learned another lesson?
The problem (again) for the EU is that its roadmap to reduce reliance on products from China will take years and is filled with question marks, but if Europe continues to damage ties at the current rate, it runs the risk of derailing its green transition efforts while further wrecking its economies.
At his meeting with Baerbock, Qin acknowledged that China would be hurt by a “new Cold War” but noted Europe would suffer more. He mentioned a recent report from the Austrian Institute of Economic Research and the Foundation for Family Businesses, which estimates that Germany’s GDP would drop two percent if it “de-risks” from China. And it’s obviously not just Germany. Agathe Demarais, global forecasting director at the Economist Intelligence Unit, outlines some of the other negatives for the EU as a whole:
The EU would lose its biggest trading partner for goods. The consequences of this would be dire for European export-oriented firms, as China is their third largest export market. Losing access to a market of 1.4 billion consumers is simply not an option for many European businesses.
Goods shortages would become commonplace in Europe, as EU imports from China are twice the size of those from the US (the EU’s second-largest source of imports). The competitiveness of European firms is too low to replace all imports from China, notably for basic manufactured staples. As such, decoupling from China would weigh on growth and fuel consumer inflation.
Besides, a European decoupling from China would probably provoke Chinese retaliation. Beijing has an ace up its sleeve with rare earths. China controls the vast majority of known rare-earths deposits. It could curb the access of European firms to these crucial raw materials. Without them, the development of electrical vehicles, military gear, and semiconductors would stall in Europe.
Nonetheless, Berlin continues to do its best to wreck ties between the two countries. Germany’s education minister, Bettina Stark-Watzinger, visited Taiwan in March – the highest-level visit by a German official in 26 years. That provocative move upset Beijing, which just postponed on short notice a meeting between the Chinese and German finance ministers.
Additionally, there were recent reports that Germany is planning to ban the export to China of chemicals used to manufacture semiconductors (Berlin denies this). Germany is also working on its “China Strategy,” which is being steered by Baerbock and is expected to formalize a much more hawkish stance against Beijing when it’s released in the coming months. This is the same Germany that said no thanks to Russian gas and just shut down its remaining nuclear power plants.
While Europe struggles to deal with the loss of Russian energy, the EU Commission and Germany seem determined to make matters worse for the people of Europe. Germany is leading calls for EU nations to begin major deficit reduction efforts while countries are also expected to start ponying up more for the Ukraine war effort. From Thomas Fazi at Unherd:
The European Commission announced its billion-euro plan to increase Europe’s capacity for producing ammunition to send to Ukraine, for which member states will have to contribute up to a billion euros — yet another step in Europe’s “switch to war economy mode”, as commissioner Thierry Breton put it . In other words, European countries will soon be required to cut back on social welfare and crucial investment in non-defence-related areas in order to finance the EU’s new defence economy — we might call this military austerity — in the context of the bloc’s increasingly vassal-like subordination to US foreign policy.
All of which points to the inevitability of Germany’s return as the EU’s “economic policeman”. For the past year, the country has been trying to redefine its role in light of the massive tectonic shifts brought about the war in Ukraine — especially Europe’s geopolitical pivot from the West to the East. Perhaps it has finally found one: in the form of a renewed “special relationship” with the US as its primary Western European proxy, particularly when it comes to foreign policy. As Wolfgang Streeck has argued
, this would entail re-establishing a position of economic leadership within the EU, on the provision of managing it on Washington’s behalf and of “tak[ing] responsibility for organising and, importantly, financing the European contribution to the war”.
How about the second and third largest economies in the EU, France and Italy? Are they on board with the Baerbock and von der Leyen China hawks?
While Macron seemingly had a change of heart while on his April trip to Beijing, it’d be nice to see some action from the Elysee before declaring him another de Gaulle. Let’s remember that ahead of Macron’s trip to Washington last year the French were offering to help convince European recalcitrants to get tougher with China – as long as the US threw the EU a bone on the Inflation Reduction Act. Well, the US has continued to ignore French and European pleas, offering only a mostly meaningless concession in March.
Italy, the only G7 nation to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), appears unlikely to renew the deal when it expires early next year. Despite all the hyperventilating over Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s election last year, she has proven herself to be a dutiful subject. As Reuters points out:
Meloni met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bali
last November and accepted an invitation to visit China, but a date has not yet been fixed.
Meloni has also not yet visited Washington and the government official said she did not want to travel to Beijing without having first been received by U.S. President Joe Biden.
Europe made its vassal status all but clear late last year when the Dutch came under heavy US pressure over ASML, which dominates the market for deep ultraviolet lithography machines used in chip making.
Washington wanted the Netherlands to forbid the company from selling Beijing equipment used in making the most advanced chips. The Dutch foreign trade minister initially stressed that “the Netherlands will not copy the American measures one-to-one. We make our assessment — and we do this in consultation with partner countries.”
It was a major decision for the Dutch and Europe as a whole as Michele Geraci, former undersecretary of state at the Italian Ministry of Economic Development said :
If they continue to do business with China, they will flourish, they will reinvest the money, and they will continue to advance in development. And Europe will retain a very strong presence in the semiconductor industry, which is the industry of the future. If they stop selling microprocessor machinery to China, China will make them by themselves, maybe not today, maybe not next year, but in 2 or 3 years’ time. And ASML will lose its competitive strength and Europe will also lose one of the great companies that they have in this sector.
So what’s the best choice? They need to manage the pressure from the US because it’s a very important decision between short term and long term. If the Netherlands government chooses to listen to the US, they will destroy their long-term future in exchange for some short-term gains. And in exchange, China will lose in the short term, because China will suffer a little bit, but in the long term will win.
Well, about a month after the Dutch foreign trade minister talked tough, the Netherlands caved and joined the US efforts.
While Europe became convinced of the China threat relatively recently and wants to remedy the issue overnight, China has been following a long-term strategy of reducing its dependence on foreign technology and capabilities for more than 15 years and has projected that strategy forward another 15 years. The results of those efforts from the Harvard Business Review:
China has done more than just leverage its size and abundant low-skilled labor. It has also invested heavily in education to expand its skilled talent pool, increasing the number of college graduates from one million in 2000 to more than 8 million in 2019, 5 million of whom earned degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math, giving China more STEM graduates than India, the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the UK, and Canada combined. It has also upgraded its physical infrastructure by spending more money on building roads, rails, and airports than the U.S. and Europe combined.
Of course, European along with US elites aided all these efforts by outsourcing
much of their industry to China, but it shows how Beijing likes to play the long game. The CPC plans to do the same with Europe, unless pushed to do otherwise. Zhou Bo, a retired PLA colonel and current senior fellow of the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, writes the following about the Cold War between the US and China at the South China Morning Post:
The battleground won’t be in the Global South, where the US has very much lost
to China, especially in Africa and Latin America. It won’t be in the Indo-Pacific either, where few countries want to take sides . It will be in Europe, where the US has most of its allies and where China is the largest trading partner.
Gradually, the transatlantic alliance will relax. Even if America’s decline is gradual, it cannot afford a global military presence. It will have to retreat from around the world, including from the Middle East and Europe, to focus on the Indo-Pacific
, where the US sees China as a long-term threat. Successive US presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, have asked Europeans to take greater ownership of their security. In other words, Europe has to have strategic autonomy, even if it doesn’t want to. That Europe takes China as a partner, competitor and systemic rival at the same time says more about Europe’s confusion about China, than what China really is.
Barring some drastic change of course and the removal of hardcore Atlanticists like von der Leyen and Baerbock, Europe will almost certainly blunder its way into a destructive de-risking or whatever they want to call it with China before it can resolve that confusion. That’s might be a major problem with Beijing’s logic: if European relations with Russia are any indication, Brussels is more than happy to shoot itself in the foot, and it will do so primarily for the sake of the US that is engaging in the same practices through the Inflation Reduction Act that the EU claims is one of the reasons it must take a tougher stance against China.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the following at an April 27 speech on “renewing American economic leadership” at the Brookings Institution:
We will unapologetically pursue our industrial strategy at home—but we are unambiguously committed to not leaving our friends behind. We want them to join us. In fact, we need them to join us.
With friends like these…
Syria Welcomed Back Into Arab League & U.S. FLIPS OUT
The Chinese are not only fully awake but fully cognisant of the Anglo-Saxons’ wiles in the debt, and semiconductor sectors, as well as in honey, Hello Kitty and all others.
“Let China sleep. For when she wakes, the world will tremble”. Although The Dictionnaire Napoléon attributes this apothegm not to the great Napoleon (who loved a good bon mot almost as much as he loved a good battle) but to British actor David Niven playing the British Ambassador during the Boxer rebellion in the 1963 Hollywood blockbuster 55 days at Peking, it matters not.
China has arrived and she is shaking up the world to a degree not even her Japanese neighbour achieved during Japan’s recent years of economic glory. That being so, we must gauge the force of this Godzilla who, horror of NATO horrors, is not only brokering peace in the Middle East but, more to the heart of this essay, is honey-laundering atop a mountain of debt that has our NATO overlords sweating bricks.
First stop is honey. China has agreed to annually import some 50,000 tonnes of honey from sanctions-struck Iran, which needs every nickel and dime it can scrape together. Because the Iranian bee industry, as this informative article explains, has huge upside potential, I am happy China is helping Iran’s 140,000 beekeepers stay afloat. Whereas in Western countries, bee-keeping is generally a side product some farmers engage in, in Syria, and I imagine, in Iran, bee-keepers follow their nomadic bees about as they migrate from one locale to the other; as Iran, for example, has over four times the amount of flower species Western Europe has Iran, like Syria, is a veritable heaven on earth for bees. Although NATO’s Syrian war of extermination has severely disrupted Syria’s bees and Syria’s bee-keepers, this Sino-Iranian deal shows there is hope for the bee-keepers of Iran, Iraq and Syria and, for that, I could not be happier.
Allied to that, China, the world’s largest honey producer, is accused of dumping its own honey onto the international honey market and thereby undercutting the EU’s 600,000 bee producers and, crucially, Ukraine, against which Western countries have no hope of competing, at least on price.
But, in China’s defence, it must be said that such activities are part and parcel of today’s international “rules based order” systems of trade. Here, for example, is a report of Irish farmers managing Saudi Arabia’s massive cattle farms. Global beef production has changed and one either goes for the quantity that Saudi Arabia and Bill Gates’ own mega farms represent or one goes for quality, for such things as Kobe beef, Irish whiskey and French luxury goods.
Irish whiskey, which is a much finer product than the cough mixtures sister Scotland palms off to an unsuspecting world, is important to our analysis as Ukraine’s rotund Ambassador to Ireland has demanded Ireland boycott its own Irish whiskey, boycotting being a tactic the Irish not only invented but excelled at. Leaving aside that ignoramus and all other considerations, if Ireland can grab back some of the market in China (and Russia) from the Scots, that would be a good thing because China, whether the CIA likes it or not, is the new Roaring 20s Japan.
That means the Chinese have a lot of money to splurge on Irish whiskey, French luxury goods and Hello Kitty. As the Japanese, during their golden years, accounted for over 70% of Louis Vuitton’s global sales, Irish whiskey producers, French luxury goods’ makers, Iranian beekeepers and the custodians of Japan’s kawaii culture cannot ignore China.
The Chinese pay for all their Hello Kitty merchandise, their Scottish cough mixtures and their French perfumes by exporting stuff, things like bullet trains that they reversed-engineered from Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Because China is growing so fast, there are opportunities galore there in everything from honey and Kobe beef to Volkswagen cars and aircraft carriers, all of which China, with its reverse-engineering hacks, can pay for with its export surpluses or by taking on some debt.
As with honey, so also is China a major agricultural producer in her own right and her farms range from the very primitive to state-of-the-art wonders that match anything the Netherlands, or even Bill Gates’ sinister mega-ranches have to offer. China’s main constraint in this respect is its waters are in the wrong place and it is not at all clear that the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, its traditional water source, will cover its future needs.
To tackle that and countless other development bottlenecks China, to accommodate the growing expectations of her countless masses, must invest heavily on a scale the world has never previously witnessed. And it must borrow heavily too as borrowing is a means of spreading investments one might not otherwise be able to afford over longer terms.
And that brings us to China: The Root of Madness, the CIA’s 1967 Cold War documentary “explaining” China through the CIA’s prism. But China must be explained through a Chinese, not an American prism and, if CIA spy Theodore H White, who produced that garbage, had bothered to read Chairman Mao, he would have come across far more references to ancient Chinese dynasties than he would to Karl Marx or Freddy Engels.
Because White’s Anglo-Saxons fret far too much about China’s debt policies rather than their own, we will now compare and contrast one with the other. Traditionally, there were two basic economic systems, the German-Japanese system where banks and borrowing were the financial engines of their sure but steady growth and the Anglo-American system where the riskier, roller-coaster stock market ruled the roost. China’s approach to debt, yet again, is best described as Japan’s on steroids.
In the United States, to coin a Napoleonic bon mot, debt has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. The vultures’ Klondyke that was payday lending, where the Anglo-Saxon poor, living from pay cheque to pay cheque, paid unsustainable loan-sharking rates to their creditors, has been replaced with predatory smart phone apps, where poor Americans are now reduced to buying their meals on credit and paying through the nose for them, as Uncle Sam catches them in micro debt traps from which there is no escape.
At the macro international level, African and other nations have long been stuck in a similarly slick debt trap they too have no means of escaping, not least because the IMF and the World Bank, their supposed saviours, were tasked ab ovo with keeping them enslaved to Uncle Sam and his Anglo-Saxon partners in crime.
Whatever one may think about the Bible, Proverbs 22:7: gets it right when it proclaims that “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is slave of the lender”. That has certainly been the case in Africa, as it is now in tiny Ireland, which was forced, almost at gunpoint, to take on over 40% of the EU’s debt, and Ukraine, which is currently fighting Russia on a maxed-out credit card.
That credit card will have to be cleared by Ukraine handing over its crown jewels to BlackRock, Vanguard and its other creditors and by paying interest on the mountains of debt it has racked up to fight its unwinnable war. Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Halliburton and Uncle Sam’s other seasoned vultures are already in advanced discussions to run Ukraine’s energy industry and the leprechaun vultures of Vichy Ireland have pledged to exploit (“rebuild”, as they call it) Ukraine’s Rivne Oblast region as part of their reward for propping up Zelensky’s rump Reich and sniggering at those tens of thousands of young Ukrainians slaughtered to make these scams possible.
Rustem Umerov, who heads Ukraine’s State Property Fund (SPF), claims there are more than 3,500 companies which are listed as state-owned, with almost 1,800 of them bankrupt and non-functional. The list for a privatisation fire-sale to Zelensky’s Western allies includes distilleries and grain elevators, which could be of interest to investors, as well as hundreds of abandoned facilities, which will be given away for nickels on the dollar. Umerov is hoping to earn over $400 million by selling an elite set of companies ranging from a fertilizer producer to utilities, smelters and an insulin maker. Ammonia maker Odessky Pryportovy Zavod, titanium producer United Mining, Zaporozhye Titanium-Magnesium Plant, insulin manufacturer Indar, and power generator Centrenergo PJSC will be among the first to be sold at knock down prices and up to $200 million of state-owned land is ear-marked to follow shortly afterwards. Because Russian speakers have no rights in Ukraine, the Demurinsky Mining and Processing Plant, which develops reserves of titanium-zirconium sands and which is owned by Russian tycoon Mikhail Shelkov, is also scheduled to be sold. Rusal’s Nikolaev alumina refinery is also scheduled for “privatisation”, as is the confiscated property of Russians Vladimir Yevtushenkov and Oleg Deripaska.
The Chinese system, with its supposed Muslim, Tibetan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Hello Kitty issues, operates a trifle differently from Zelensky’s Ukrainian gangsters and there is no real point in getting our Chinese-made knickers in a twist about any of it. All of NATO’s faux Chinese concerns are blowbacks from the growth of China‘s economy and the end of the easy money that flowed from America’s property and dot.com bubbles. Because Easy Street is over, the Yanks must now re-discover The Zen of Working Hard even though, like their European vassals, they are no longer up to the task. The Chinese, like the Japanese workers of Toyota or the Koreans of Kia Motor Works, just plod on and on, accumulating wealth, Iranian honey and other delights for their children and, given her demographics, her children’s children. And good on them.
This is not to say that every Chinese, Japanese or Korean citizen has been a winner but their systems have been designed to give the greatest possible opportunities they can to the greatest number of their citizens. Though the Chinese love gambling, they have not followed Uncle Sam’s casino capitalism model but, like the post-War Japanese, they have instead worked hard and likewise pulled themselves up by the bootstraps.
And, just as Japan was once the major player in long-term sovereign debt, so now has that poisoned chalice passed to Beijing. If Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mozambique, Zambia and Grenada wish to escape from the debt burdens Uncle Sam has saddled them with, they must look to Beijing. And while China has played hard-ball, they have been nowhere nearly as harsh as Elliott Investment Management and other American critics of China that picked Africa cleaner than might a flock of ravenous vultures.
But what of China, with its sweet tooth for Iranian honey, its Scottish cough mixtures and its Hello Kitty regalia? The Chinese government is tasked with allowing its citizens enjoy such fruits of their labour, whilst maintaining its armed forces to defend its citizens and instituting a system that allows China earn the wherewithal to pay for all such frivolities. Given China accounts for a fifth of the world’s population, that is a huge task, human resource and financial management on truly Biblical scales the world has never previously witnessed.
And, as with Japan during its golden years debt, albeit with Chinese characters, is an integral part of that process. Though personal, institutional and government debt in China are all huge, should we really be as concerned as our narcissistic Anglo-Saxon overlords are about it?
I think not. Debt, the Anglo-Saxon economists tell us, offers us more choice, the ability, for example, to get a mortgage loan on a house, rather than forever renting or living in a roadside wigwam. Debt, lots of it, allows Americans to send their kids to College which, depending on what they study, may or may not be a good investment. Of course, it also allows the Yanks to buy lots of Chinese goods from Walmart but let’s just take that as a given of Americans’ consumer fixations.
All the more so as China is also buying into the consumer craze. Chinese citizens are even hiring American women to bear their children which the CIA’s Heritage Foundation believe is a national security risk. Although it is fine and dandy for Americans to rent Ukrainian wombs, the burgeoning Chinese-American “rent-a-womb” industry, in which ageing Chinese couples draft fertile American women to give birth to offspring with U.S. citizenship is, they say, not playing to the CIA’s rules based order, whose lack of logic China’s economic ascent has placed under immense strain.
Surrogate babies are just one symptom. America is not only one gigantic debt mountain but its debt markets dwarf its stock markets, which are the world’s biggest. The Japanese (again) long saw this and that there were, for them, easy pickings to be had by lending to American states and cities on the correct presumption that the U.S. government would not allow those states and cities to go bankrupt. The Japanese who, like the Koreans and Chinese, are diligent savers, have been keeping the U.S. economy afloat for decades now with their soft loans which, like all loans, must be paid back eventually.
But what of the Chinese? U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen has acknowledged the threat China poses to U.S. hegemony (the rules’ based order as the Anglo Saxons call it) and the need to contain China by sanctions, by controlling intellectual property rights and by bad-mouthing them in NATO’s media over human rights and the plight of panda bears.
This is, again, a re-run of America’s post oil crisis attack on Japan because Japan has the art of car-making down to a tee. There is simply no way the Americans, the Germans or the Scandinavians can compete with the Japanese auto makers or, indeed, the Chinese, who are not only the new Japanese but who have entire armies of engineers improving the efficiency of cars and everything else they produce.
And that includes Taiwanese microchips, which Uncle Sam clings to as a drowning man might cling to a straw. As no country, from the Sumerians of antiquity to the Anglo-Saxons of our own era, has managed to monopolise a particular technology forever, Taiwanese microchips are, as the late Chairman Mao might have put it, a competitive paper tiger, childish Japanese origami that will vanish with a gust of divine wind.
Uncle Sam thinks differently and has ordered its Taiwanese and Korean colonies to stop selling semiconductor chips to China. America has also demanded that German companies Merck, and BASF, which supply Asian chip-makers with critical chemicals for production, follow the example of the Dutch who, on the Yanks’ orders, have severely restricted exports of their semi-conductors to the Middle Kingdom.
Though NATO, like Samson of old, hopes these export restrictions will cripple China’s ability to develop advanced technologies, as well as its capability to produce semiconductors, the tide of modern history, where competitive advantages cannot be held for long, suggest this pathetic boycotting will fail. Despite China being Berlin’s most important trading partner for the seventh year in a row now, because Germany remains a grovelling slave to America, we can assume the Pentagon will get their way here and further damage Germany (and the Netherlands). Talk about global supply chain hara kiri by those emasculated oafs!
NATO should, of course, have let China’s semiconductor industry sleep. Beijing has launched a national security review into Micron Dram, one of three dominant players in the global memory chip market alongside South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. As with Louis Vuitton, so also is it with Dram, where mainland China and Hong Kong generates 25 per cent of its $31bn annual revenue. If Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol accedes to Uncle Sam’s request to ban the sale of their microchips to China, then he is even more stupid than any Irish sniveller who boycotts Irish whiskey on the word of the obese Ukrainian grifter, who has the gig of loud-mouthed Ambassador to Vichy Ireland.
Although the Pentagon believes that their competitive edge in microchips will stave off the Chinese dragon, that is not where the true fight is. The fact of the matter is the United States and its puppet allies long ago exported the whole logistics chain to China and thereby made China the world’s logistical hub, its Middle Kingdom if you will. Not only is that almost impossible to undo but there are over a billion Chinese who have a vested interest in maintaining that emerging status quo that so upsets our Anglo-Saxon friends.
Gold, by way of illustration of that latter point, is the easiest of metals to work with and it is the first metal mentioned in the Bible (Genesis 2:11-12). And, though gold jewellery is almost universally popular, the North Italians are the world’s best at fabricating gold, simply because they have long held the logistical hubs, even from long before Romulus and Remus founded Rome.
Although American puppets like Ursula von der Leyen can threaten hell and damnation on the Chinese economy, German and French automakers are making more coin by producing cars in China than they are in Europe. Why? Because China has the logistical hubs and one part of China is not squabbling with another for the right to produce hub caps, as the various European states do with each other. Europe is an organisational mess and China, as with Japan’s Hello Kitty and auto industries, is not.
And, when we ask whether the Biden family’s control of the semiconductor industry can stop China, we have to conclude that it cannot and, again, Japan shows us why. When the Europeans first reached Japan, they brought muskets with them to The Land of the Rising Sun where such a technology was unknown but where the Europeans were amazed that Japanese steel was far superior to anything they had previously encountered in Borrell’s European garden.
The Japanese, who had never previously clapped eyes on a musket, not only solved the crucial European problem of how to stop rain destroying the gun-powder but, within six months of first clapping eyes on them, were exporting muskets throughout the rest of Eastern Asia. Following the 1904/5 Russo-Japanese war, the Japanese determined that they would have to match the German Leica company in terms of lenses. Not only did the Japanese match them but they far out-paced them in less than half of the time they had allocated to that objective. If the Americans think they can stop the Chinese semiconductor tide, they best import some more Chinese or Japanese brains because it is plain as day they have a critical shortage of grey matter, as well as a profound ignorance on how inter-connected the intermediate industries of China, Korea and Japan are.
The Chinese economy, their national pay packet if you will, continues to increase, by an impressive 4.5% in the first quarter of 2023, as it happens, meaning it is in a better position to pay off or roll over any outstanding debt and, of course, to buy more whiskey, more French perfumes and more Hello Kitty kitsch.
Yankee land, meanwhile, just prints more dollar bills and spends a staggering $500 billion annually servicing their debt, even as they imagine China would not develop a debt market of their own and thereby sink the American smoke and mirrors economy. For the fact of the matter is China’s debt is not a problem and will not be a problem as long as China can manage it. And so far, as with Japan, there is no sign of a major crisis. For the Good Ship China, it seems to be steady as she goes and to hell with Moody’s and the other partisan naysayers.
To illustrate China’s strength, let’s once again turn our eyes towards Japan, whose currency is the yen. Upon hearing that yen meant circle in English, American war lord Douglas MacArthur decreed that there would be 360 yen to the Yankee dollar. It is currently trading at 135 to the dollar, which is well within its recent trading band. The Chinese yuan is at 7 to the dollar and it too is within recent trading bands. China, however, is in a much stronger position than the U.S. or any of its satrapies to push the yuan, and therefore the dollar, any way it pleases. The boot is, in other words, increasingly on the Chinese and not the NATO foot.
Here, in conclusion, is 1900 footage of a French damsel in Saigon throwing Vietnamese children grain, like they were foraging chickens. The Anglo-Saxons should know that those days are, thanks to the armed might of South East Asians and their allies, gone and, thanks to the economic might of those countries, they are not returning. The United States, together with its German, Dutch and other vassals, best acknowledge and live with that fact or be prepared to take a turn at foraging themselves when their own stupidity collapses their own side of the global economic system. As for the Chinese, they are not only fully awake but fully cognisant of the Anglo-Saxons’ wiles in the debt, and semiconductor sectors, as well as in honey, Hello Kitty and all others.
What Edward Snowden just said about UFO’s is TERRIFYING and should concern all of us.
Why does India need $474 million loan from Japan to build the metro in Bengaluru? Don’t we have the money to build it ourselves or something?
Oh you are mistaken
You think India is going to Japan for a Loan?
Its the other way round – Japan is coming to India and requesting India for the chance to finance some projects
Banks in Japan are flush with cash. Until 2018 they poured money into China but now China is flush with its own money and prefers to invest its own money.
Japan needs investments. Unlike the Bullet Train , the Metro is a safe and solid investment.
So Japan is the one who is requesting India for the Loans and India has agreed to borrow from Japan for both Bangalore and Delhi.
So we are the ones doing the Favor here.
What do Chinese people think about “Study Enter Flat”? I used a code name so that I don’t get my visa revoked.
Hi, Rocky Smith , thanks for the request!
“Study Enter Flat” was perhaps one of my most favorite activities during the halcyon days of my childhood.
One of my classmates would invite a handful of us over to his or her flat for a study session and we would all pack our bags, mostly with books, books, and more books, but also with some snacks and food.
These study sessions were serious business, man.
You weren’t welcome if your intention was to goof around.
If the person who gave out the invite ever got so much as a sniff that you were there merely to fool around and waste everyone’s time, you would be kicked out of the flat, and told that there was not a chance in Hell that you would be allowed entry back into the flat unless you were serious about getting some studying done, like all the other kids who weren’t kicked out.
Unless you there to study, you could not enter the inviter’s flat.
Hence the name: “Study Enter Flat”.
After our grueling study sessions were over, we would stretch a bit, kick back, and then prepare some grub for our hungry young little stomachs.
Even during the study sessions themselves, we were already munching on snacks:
Like 大白兔奶糖 (White Rabbit Milk Candy)
Or 猫耳朵 (Cat Ear):
Or 山楂饼 (Hawthorn Flakes):
and 山楂卷 (Hawthorn Rolls)
I don’t really like 火腿肠 (ham sausage) but most of my classmates loved it.
The crunchy goodness of 旺旺雪饼 (Wang Wang Snow Biscuit)
But snacks were never enough for a group of growing kids, so we would supplement all those snacks with a meal either at the end of the study sessions or as a break period in between.
Since were all school-going kids, our meals weren’t very complex.
Just something filling enough to keep the hunger demons at bay for a bit.
Steamed buns and noodles were a mainstay.
We would stir-fry some cut-up vegetables and eat them with the buns/noodles.
Alternatively, if the meal was right after a study session, then we might even spend some time making dumplings.
Conclusion, a.k.a. TLDR:
“Study Enter Flats” – ah, sure brings back the memories.
Good times, good company, good food.
Tortilla Lasagna
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 pound ground chicken or turkey
- 2 small green or red bell peppers, seeded and chopped
- 1 small onion, peeled and chopped
- 1 (4 ounce) can ORTEGA Diced Green Chiles
- 1 (1.25 ounce) packet ORTEGA Taco Seasoning Mix – Regular
- 1 (16 ounce) jar ORTEGA Thick & Smooth Taco Sauce – Medium, divided
- 10 (6-inch) fajita-size flour tortillas, divided
- 2 cups shredded Mexican blend or Monterey Jack cheese, divided
Instructions
- Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease 13 x 9-inch baking dish.
- Heat oil in a large skillet. Add chicken; cook, stirring occasionally, until no longer pink.
- Stir in bell peppers, onion, chiles and seasoning mix. Reduce heat to low; cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are slightly tender.
- Spread 1/2 cup taco sauce onto bottom of prepared baking dish. Cover with 5 ortillas.
- Spread with half of chicken mixture and another 1/2 cup taco sauce.
- Sprinkle with 1 cup cheese.
- Repeat with remaining ingredients.
- Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until heated through and cheese is melted.
Yield: 8 servings
BREAKING NEWS! Something Big is Happening on NATOs Border and Canada is Burning
UPDATED 03:05 AM (Sunday) EDT — It’s Official: Russia Has Liberated Bakhmut from Ukrainian NAZIS
As reported “imminent” on the Hal Turner Radio Show last night (Friday 19 May) Bakhmut, Ukraine has finally and officially been liberated by Russia; the Ukrainian NAZIS are defeated and have fled.
Leader of the Wagner PMC, Prigozhin made the announcement personally, with his Wagner troops inside Bakhmut city:
The city map of Bakhmut shows the areas now totally liberated by Russia . . . the entire city!
This victory will have severe implications for Ukraine NAZIS, who now will have great difficulty supplying troops in the entire south of Ukraine.
All major rail lines previously used to supply Ukraine troops, ran through Bakhmut, as did several major highways. Now, the Russians control the entire city, and those Ukraine military supplies cannot get through.
Prigozhin says that his Wagner troops will leave Bakhmut on the 25th, being relieved by the Russian Army. They will get some (well-deserved) rest, then likely be assigned to another city target; rumors suggest Odessa.
UPDATE 7:11 PM EDT —
Some limited skirmishes were still fought today in Bakhmut, but Russia has sealed its total victory. Photos of PMC Wagner troops celebrating their hard-earned victory:
UPDATE 03:05 AM (SUNDAY)
The mass-Media is __finally__ starting to report this story. The London Daily Mail in the UK, and NBC News here in the US, were only about fourteen HOURS behind the coverage of this story right here on Hal Turner Radio Show! Once again, the world got it’s news faster, here, than from the mass-media!
You are not crazy. You are not alone.
Tender and Militant: Artist Sung-Choul Ham and His South Korean Fantasy Worlds
Sung-Choul Ham is an artist from South Korea, he draws illustrations and concepts (mostly fighting anime girls) for games and movies. He’s currently working at Majors Studio where he’s developing characters for South Korean fantasy MMORPGs and he’s doing a great job.
More: Instagram
American “leadership” drunk or having a stroke?
<blockquote
class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Texas House
Speaker Dade Phelan last night.<br><br>Is he having a stroke
or just drunk.<a
href="https://t.co/b6nlO1FHb3">pic.twitter.com/b6nlO1FHb3</a></p>—
Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) <a
href="https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1660079216606445570?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May
21, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"
charset="utf-8"></script>
Best of Larry, Darryl, and Darryl (part 12)
How do you feel about getting older and not having children to spend the holidays with?
Both of my children were killed in separate auto accidents. 12 year old Denise was killed in a school crosswalk when a woman ran the red light. Christmas has never been the same since, but I tried hard to make it nice for her younger sister., Theresa. Then (years later) last year, in a horrific head on collision, my Theresa was killed, leaving a loving husband and two children.
I am 71, and am a mother without children. in my wildest nightmares, I never imagined this could happen. I miss them every day, not just during the holidays. I have joyful memories and many pictures of them at Christmas and their birthdays. Those memories are all I have left.
Holidays are incredibly difficult and I dread them. I worry about my son in law and my grandson, as they try to survive. My son in law still cannot bear to go into stores where happy couples shop together. My grandson, in his 20’s, is emotionally struggling.
My granddaughter, who was recently diagnosed with a tumor at the base of her brain, mourns the loss while trying to cope with chemotherapy and everyday life with her three young children. She will undergo surgery when the tumor has been reduced to a manageable size so they can operate. Two of my granddaughter’s children have genetic heart defects. The older child has had two unsuccessful surgeries to correct the problem. The younger one is too small for surgery. Make-a-Wish foundation has been generous by sending the family for a special Disney vacation.
For those people who miss their children at the holidays because they have grown and spread their wings….have moved far away, or are spending the holidays with friends or their partner’s family, rejoice that they are alive and thriving. Rejoice that you can still talk with them and make new memories.
Examples of successful rebranding in history.
When have you sat next to an extremely obese person on a plane, and what was your experience?
Yes, on a flight from Houston to Amsterdam. The large gentleman was stuck in the middle seat and I was by the window.
The person on the aisle did a lot of huffing and puffing, sighing and harrumphing. He even asked the steward if he could change to another seat.
The gentleman in the middle was mortified with embarrassment- I felt so sorry for him.
The flight was about 11 hours- I started up a conversation with him in order to mitigate the rudeness he was being subjected to (I usually make a point of not talking to people on long journeys and just bury my nose in a book!) and he turned out to be absolutely fascinating. He was from Denmark, spoke superb English and was a delightful travelling companion! Other than the fact that we were terribly squashed together and very uncomfortable- it was a great flight.
As time wore on, I fell asleep and he provided very comfortable cushioning. We had breakfast together in Schiphol airport before going our separate ways on our connecting flights. As we finished breakfast he thanked me for being so kind and said that his bulk was something that caused him great distress and with which he has struggled for much of his life. It broke my heart that this man was regularly made to feel that he had to apologize for simply being.
Be kind. It’s not difficult.
MIDWAY (2019) – Imperial Japanese Navy Abandoning Ship
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the real price of the American Dream for Black women & why I gave it up
"I'm a 60 year old blk woman, and I can tell you that there's no such thing as an American Dream. That was a term that was used about 100 years ago when immigrants arrived at Ellis Island, and only immigrants use that term today. There is no set list of accomplishments one has to achieve. For some people, it's having a successful career, getting married, buying a house and raising a family. For others, it might be living off the grid in a tiny house and growing their own food. Everyone has different dreams."
SHOCKING new Epstein papers reveal CREEPY targeting of children for medical experiments
Bakhmut Has Fallen – Artyomovsk Has Been Liberated
The so far largest battle of the 21st century ended today.
Bakhmut has fallen. Artyomovsk (the Russian/Soviet name of the city) has been liberated. This was announced today by the titular leader of the Wagner forces, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in a video posted on Telegram.
Why the Ukrainian leadership had decided to hold onto the city even months after the situation there was already in its disfavor is beyond me. The fight was decided by the numerical superiority of Russian artillery fire and the Ukraine had never a chance to top that.
The losses there for the Ukrainians amounted to 300 to 500 men per day over that last 5 months. That sums up to a total of 60,000 casualties. Ten days ago Ukrainian units, including the fascist Azov brigade, rolled up the Russian flanks north and south of Bakhmut to allow the Ukrainian troops in the city to flee west. That attack alone, only one or 2 kilometer deep, cost them some 1,600+ men and some 50+ armored vehicles.
On the Russian side the fighting in the city was largely done by Wagner troops. But they were never able to do it on their own. Russian military intelligence, artillery and logistics all played an important role in the fight.
The city has been destroyed but it will continued to exist as it is an important logistical hub with several rail and road connections running through it.
Mariupol, which fell/was liberated a year ago, is already being rebuild. In a month or two, when the frontline has moved away from Artyomovsk, rebuilding will start there too.
For a moment now the front line in Ukraine seems all around relative quit.
It is not clear to me when or where a new operational move will start.
So apparently I don’t know what The American Dream Is
Will the BRICS alliance and its prospective currency be able to dislodge the dollar from the international lead?
In ppp terms, the brics economies have overtaken the g7 since the pandemic.
Let me repeat, because this is an important point to make.
THE BRICS HAVE OVETAKEN THE G7 IN PURCHASING POWER.
The G7 no longer have the natural advantage over the rest economically.
The power they continue to wield leans heavily on history, and not current realities. Projections paint a future of ebbing influence, and domestic decay.
The collective west find themselves in the paradoxical situation of printing so much money they don’t have enough, courtesy of raging inflation forcing a tightening of belts.
In sum, the BRICS are on the up, while the west is struggling to stay afloat, and will likely sink.
The most illuminating development that went unreported this pandemic is the observation that the third world didn’t need the first world. China exported more vaccine than the rest of the world combined throughout 2021 (when it mattered most), and supplied more than 80% of all masks and PPE used globally, keeping prices stable amidst a massive demand spike.
In fact, the collective west under the leadership of the Americans have provided little, not even loan forgiveness for the poorest economies which were devastated by covid. Instead, massive fiscal stimulus finally reared inflation’s ugly head, while “Europe” and big brother came into open conflict with the other piece of Europe, the unrecognized Europeans of Christian Orthodoxy descent.
“Europe” today is mired in protests of a size and scale that rival the fires lit by color revolutions of the Arab Spring and more recently, Hong Kong. They go mostly unreported in the international press, because what’s unwritten didn’t happen. The common thread? Cost of living squeeze, just like in America. Americans have taken to violence, drugs and crime rather than protests. Looting and shoplifting is tacitly allowed with a “non-prosecution” monetary upper-bound, and main street in some of the most famous cities anywhere smell and look like dystopia, rather than an economy generating jobs at never-before-seen pace.
As recession kicks in and first world driven demand shrink, new market nodes will emerge to replace these traditional centers of consumption. A new global order is emerging from the ashes of covid, and it won’t be the collective west calling ALL the shots. Others will continue to listen politely, but leaders won’t be held captive to seductive words devoid of meaningful outcome.
Give it 5–10 years.
I’m surprised by the turn of events, particularly the acceleration of the shift.
This is the Asian century, and Russia IS Asian.
‘Step Back In Time’ – Old School Dance Mashup
Taiwan taekwondo medalist celebrates with Chinese flag
Lee Tung-hsien registered in personal capacity: Sports Administration
Shrimp-Stuffed Chimichangas
Ingredients
- 10 slices bacon
- 50 large Rocky Point shrimp
- 1 1/2 cups Monterey jack cheese, shredded
- 1 cup thick fresh salsa
- 2 fresh tomatoes, chopped
- 2 cans green chile strips, diced
- 6 (12-inch) flour tortillas
Instructions
- Fry bacon until crisp enough to chop. Remove bacon and retain about 2 tablespoons fat in pan.
- Peel and de-vein shrimp, then chunk. Grill in pan for 1 minute.
- Stir in cheese, salsa, tomatoes and chiles. Turn to blend, but not long or shrimp will become tough. Divide and pile on tortillas. Fold all sides over and fasten with wooden picks. Slide carefully into hot oil and brown lightly.
- Drain on paper towels. (Or bake at 400 degrees F for 7 to 10 minutes.)
The “American Dream” is actual Slavery (It’s all a Lie)
7:20 PM EDT – 19 May 2023: Bakhmut, Right Now! The very last Ukraine Nazis Being Burned out
As of 7:20 PM eastern US time today, 19 May 2023, the very last Ukraine Nazis are being burned out by Wagner PMC and the Russian Army!
I am already receiving videos from Russian Soldiers on the ground inside Bakhmut wherein they are saying “Bakhmut has fallen.”
More info on tonight’s Hal Turner Radio Show at 9:00 PM eastern US time.
American “news”
Hardly a whimper about the losses in Ukraine.
Taiwan is facing the curse of being an ally of Uncle Sam in the same way that Germany and the rest of Europe have.
Taiwan has been obliged to give its American ally an extraordinary warning: don’t even think about blowing up our semiconductor industry.
The warning follows growing calls by U.S. politicians and military analysts that Washington should destroy the island’s vital technology sector in order to purportedly prevent China from gaining control of lucrative exports and as a way of damaging China’s economy.
Congressman Seth Moulton is the latest American voice airing such drastic action. Referring to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Moulton said that the U.S. should “make it very clear to the Chinese that if you invade Taiwan, we’re going to blow up TSMC.”
TMSC is the world’s biggest manufacturer of semiconductors. It is a major supplier to mainland China of hi-tech chips that are, in turn, critical for a wide range of Chinese manufacturing and export industries.
Previously, it was reported that the U.S. Army War College suggested that Washington should plan “scorched-earth” tactics that could render Taiwan “not just unattractive if ever seized by force, but positively costly to maintain.”
Taiwan has reacted furiously to these unilateral American calls for sabotage. The island territory’s defense chief Chiu Kuo-cheng slammed the U.S. tough-talking, saying “the [Taiwanese] armed forces would not tolerate the destruction of any Taiwanese facility”.
The projected bombing of Taiwan’s vital semiconductor industry echoes how the U.S. blew up the Nord Stream gas pipeline last September. The pipeline under the Baltic Sea was part-owned by Germany and Russia, to deliver natural gas to fuel the German and European economies.
The decision to sabotage Nord Stream was taken by U.S. President Joe Biden, according to excellent investigative reporting by Seymour Hersh. The purpose of that act of terrorism was to cut Germany and Europe off from Russian energy exports, to be replaced by more expensive American gas. That strategic objective of displacing Russia from Europe’s energy market has been a recurring issue for successive U.S. administrations over many years.
Months before the Baltic Sea pipeline was blown up by U.S. navy divers, Biden had bragged that the facility would be terminated. He did not specify how, but he vowed that “it would not go ahead”. Biden made his blatant threat in front of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a press conference at the White House. Evidently, America’s NATO ally Germany was not even consulted about the sabotage plan.
A similar arrogant attitude is now on display towards America’s other ally Taiwan.
Washington is evidently toying with the idea of blowing up the island’s tech industry as a way to damage mainland China’s interests. Like Germany, Taiwan is revealed to be nothing more than a pawn, in America’s geopolitical machinations.
Destroying Taiwan’s lead role in the global semiconductor industry would have the additional advantage of putting U.S. companies in pole position.
Ostensibly, the U.S. had repeatedly vowed to “defend” Taiwan from what it calls “China’s aggression”. Washington has pumped the island with billions of dollars of American weaponry under the pretext of “protecting” it from China’s claims of sovereignty.
Under international and U.S. law, Taiwan is recognized as an integral part of China under the so-called One China Policy. However, Beijing accuses Washington of meddling in its sovereignty by fomenting separatist politics in Taiwan.
China’s President Xi Jinping has warned the U.S. that Taiwan is its “first red line” that must not be crossed. Beijing reserves the right to use military force to fully unify the territory if Washington continues to stoke tensions and promote a declaration in Taipei of Taiwanese independence.
Underlying America’s seemingly chivalrous claims of “defending” Taiwan are geopolitical selfish interests.
The Biden administration has imposed unprecedented export bans on semiconductor technology to China. The U.S. wants to curb China’s economy for its own gain and to hamper the development of a multipolar global economy. U.S. dominance and its dollar hegemony are threatened by China’s growing economic power.
Blowing up Taiwan’s semiconductor industry is evidently being considered as a way to cripple China which is reliant on exports of this essential technology for its industries.
The analogy with Germany and the Nord Stream gas pipeline is that Washington is aiming to damage a rival, Russia, as well as its European allies for its own strategic benefit. The sabotage of Russian-European energy trade has led to severe economic impacts on Germany and the rest of Europe. Some commentators refer to the “deindustrialization” of Europe caused by the loss of affordable Russian gas fuel. This shock treatment has been imposed on European “allies” by its supposed American “protector”.
The war in Ukraine and the dramatic escalation in hostility towards Russia from European governments has served American strategic interests from bonanza selling of weapons and expensive gas, as well as giving Washington a renewed dominance over European relations.
The same reckless, criminal arrogance of blowing up Germany’s Nord Stream pipeline is being shown in the way the Americans are talking brashly about blowing up Taiwan’s vital tech industries.
It should be obvious that Washington doesn’t have allies, only interests. When the chips are down, so to speak, America’s allies will be unceremoniously thrown under a bus or, worse, thrown into an inferno of war.
Taiwan is facing the curse of being an ally of Uncle Sam in the same way that Germany and the rest of Europe have.
Best of Larry, Darryl, and Darryl (part 22)
The international community has been requesting China to increase her nuclear warheads to 5,000 to match the US’ warheads number in order to create a multipolar & balanced world for world peace, stability, security. Shouldn’t China do it?
Actually, I sincerely and seriously doubt that anyone is asking China to increase the number of nuclear warheads that they have. I am very skeptical.
Here’s some issues generated from the question.
- No one knows how many nuclear weapons that China actually has. The “accepted Western narrative” is 300. And that dates from 1966. When I was active in service, we accepted the more accurate number of 4000. But it really doesn’t matter. The number of bombs a nation has is meaningless. What is importance is “Strategic deterrence”. Either you scare people away from bombing your factories, and killing your people, or you don’t. And apparently, the neocons in the United States are not afraid of the consequences.
I suppose that’s a pretty basic understanding. China “keeps its cards close”. Keep on guessing. The smart leader hopes for the best but plans for the worst. Do you think that Xi Peng is a smart leader? Or perhaps stupid?
- World War 3 is in process. Has been now for over a decade, and still (as far is publicly known) no nuclear weapons have been detonated. It seems that the war is being prosecuted using everything BUT nuclear weapons. Biological, thermobaric, conventional, economic, drug addiction, societal, and trade.
Nations fight wars in ways and manner far beyond the conventional Hollywood narrative. So war is ongoing, and so far, hasn’t involved nuclear bombs. It’s not yet ruled out, but if it came down to it, do not believe that China AND Russia would not work together. All indications are that they are “joined at the hip” and have designs and plans on the out-of-control insane psychopathic United States.
I would advise you not to worry about it. Go out, get a pizza and a beer. Enjoy life. And stop being concerned about things that you cannot control.
ANOTHER! 7.4 Quake – Tsunami Warning Issued!
So many undersea "earthquakes". If I were a conspiracy nut, I might think these were boomer sub sinkings... -MM
For the second time in about 24 hours, a Magnitude 7+ earthquake has taken place off New Caledonia in the South Pacific. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has issued an ALERT saying a Tsunami is possible from this earthquake. It was just 24 hours ago that a bigger, 7.7 quake also generated a Tsunami there!
ZCZC WEPA40 PHEB 200158 TSUPAC TSUNAMI MESSAGE NUMBER 1 NWS PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER HONOLULU HI 0157 UTC SAT MAY 20 2023 ...PTWC TSUNAMI THREAT MESSAGE... **** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE ***** THIS MESSAGE IS ISSUED FOR INFORMATION ONLY IN SUPPORT OF THE UNESCO/IOC PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING AND MITIGATION SYSTEM AND IS MEANT FOR NATIONAL AUTHORITIES IN EACH COUNTRY OF THAT SYSTEM. NATIONAL AUTHORITIES WILL DETERMINE THE APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF ALERT FOR EACH COUNTRY AND MAY ISSUE ADDITIONAL OR MORE REFINED INFORMATION. **** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE **** NOTICE ***** PRELIMINARY EARTHQUAKE PARAMETERS --------------------------------- * MAGNITUDE 7.4 * ORIGIN TIME 0151 UTC MAY 20 2023 * COORDINATES 23.1 SOUTH 170.4 EAST * DEPTH 45 KM / 28 MILES * LOCATION SOUTHEAST OF LOYALTY ISLANDS EVALUATION ---------- * AN EARTHQUAKE WITH A PRELIMINARY MAGNITUDE OF 7.4 OCCURRED SOUTHEAST OF THE LOYALTY ISLANDS AT 0151 UTC ON SATURDAY MAY 20 2023. * BASED ON THE PRELIMINARY EARTHQUAKE PARAMETERS... HAZARDOUS TSUNAMI WAVES ARE POSSIBLE FOR COASTS LOCATED WITHIN 300 KM OF THE EARTHQUAKE EPICENTER. TSUNAMI THREAT FORECAST ----------------------- * HAZARDOUS TSUNAMI WAVES FROM THIS EARTHQUAKE ARE POSSIBLE WITHIN 300 KM OF THE EPICENTER ALONG THE COASTS OF NO AREAS COVERED BY THIS MESSAGE APPEAR TO BE IMMEDIATELY THREATENED. HOWEVER... THE SITUATION IS STILL UNDER INVESTIGATION. THIS THREAT EVALUATION WILL BE UPDATED AS SOON AS FURTHER INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE. RECOMMENDED ACTIONS ------------------- * GOVERNMENT AGENCIES RESPONSIBLE FOR THREATENED COASTAL AREAS SHOULD TAKE ACTION TO INFORM AND INSTRUCT ANY COASTAL POPULATIONS AT RISK IN ACCORDANCE WITH THEIR OWN EVALUATION... PROCEDURES AND THE LEVEL OF THREAT. * PERSONS LOCATED IN THREATENED COASTAL AREAS SHOULD STAY ALERT FOR INFORMATION AND FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS FROM NATIONAL AND LOCAL AUTHORITIES. POTENTIAL IMPACTS ----------------- * A TSUNAMI IS A SERIES OF WAVES. THE TIME BETWEEN WAVE CRESTS CAN VARY FROM 5 MINUTES TO AN HOUR. THE HAZARD MAY PERSIST FOR MANY HOURS OR LONGER AFTER THE INITIAL WAVE. * IMPACTS CAN VARY SIGNIFICANTLY FROM ONE SECTION OF COAST TO THE NEXT DUE TO LOCAL BATHYMETRY AND THE SHAPE AND ELEVATION OF THE SHORELINE. * IMPACTS CAN ALSO VARY DEPENDING UPON THE STATE OF THE TIDE AT THE TIME OF THE MAXIMUM TSUNAMI WAVES. * PERSONS CAUGHT IN THE WATER OF A TSUNAMI MAY DROWN... BE CRUSHED BY DEBRIS IN THE WATER... OR BE SWEPT OUT TO SEA. NEXT UPDATE AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION -------------------------------------- * THE NEXT MESSAGE WILL BE ISSUED IN ONE HOUR... OR SOONER IF THE SITUATION WARRANTS. * AUTHORITATIVE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EARTHQUAKE FROM THE U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY CAN BE FOUND ON THE INTERNET AT EARTHQUAKE.USGS.GOV. * FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THIS EVENT MAY BE FOUND AT WWW.TSUNAMI.GOV. * COASTAL REGIONS OF HAWAII... AMERICAN SAMOA... GUAM... AND CNMI SHOULD REFER TO PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER MESSAGES SPECIFICALLY FOR THOSE PLACES THAT CAN BE FOUND AT WWW.TSUNAMI.GOV. * COASTAL REGIONS OF CALIFORNIA... OREGON... WASHINGTON... BRITISH COLUMBIA AND ALASKA SHOULD ONLY REFER TO U.S. NATIONAL TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER MESSAGES THAT CAN BE FOUND AT WWW.TSUNAMI.GOV. $$