During the 1960’s there were all kinds of inventions and stuff that you could buy. Sometimes these were found in the back of magazines like Popular Science, or shown on television in the form of a commercial. You know the drill; “As seen on television.”
Well, my uncle Harry was quite the character. He even started a “pirate” radio station when he was a teenager in the 1930’s. Got in trouble for it too. Heh heh.
Anyways he was always trying out one gadget or the other. One time he had this weird colored sheet of plastic that he had in front of the television. This was back in the days when most televisions were black and white only. And this was long before remote controls too.
This sheet was clear but had three colored stripes. The top was transparent blue. The bottom was transparent brown, and the middle was a transparent yellow.
It gave an illusion, sort of, of a blue sky, and green grass with a yellow house in the picture.
Personally, I thought it was silly and hated it. I think that he did as well. He ended up throwing it away the next week or so.
Oh, my… so many things that were normal back in the day has become forgotten in the real world.
Today…
What’s the rudest thing a waiter ever said to you?
It wasn’t rude as much as it was condescending and mean spirited. I went to our favorite French restaurant in Las Vegas- this is a place I’ve been going to for 20+ years with my sister and it is superb, I have to admit that. This time, I brought a bottle of a 15 year old Barolo. I paid about $200 wholesale price but we were so excited for dinner and a good time. In Vegas, you can bring your own wine and just pay a corkage fee to the restaurant. The Sommelier came to our table to open and prep the wine and very matter of fact said “oh yeah this wine is just ok, right, it’s basically only 3 years old because of “this and this blah blah”. He opens the bottle, smells the cork, says “meh” basically, pours himself a taste and examines the color and quality. He tastes it and says “yeah basically just your typical young barolo. Enjoy!” And walks away. We just looked at each other thinking “what a fricking tool”.
I had the pleasure of training for a year with Wolfgang Puck and his team, and with a giant in wine and spirits supply, many years back. We were taught to have impeccable senses for spirits, wines, teas and coffee but most importantly, to always make a guest feel like a million bucks, even if they bring in a $20 bottle and to make their experience special. Didn’t have that with this little twerp.
None the less, we had a blast. Our waiter was incredible and the food was superb. Everyone received a great tip and he didn’t get even a nod good bye. Sometimes I wonder, why are the French so arrogant? The only great thing they can be proud of are things build centuries ago or food (which every country has delicious amounts of). They need a hug, I think!
What is something your father did during your childhood that is unforgivable?
When I was 16 I became very sick with tonsillitis. He told me it was from eating bagels for breakfast instead of cereal. So he banned me from eating bagels. My symptoms got worse. He told me it was because I was messing around with boys (I wasn’t ) so he grounded me from seeing my friends. My symptoms continued to get worse to the point that swallowing became difficult and the infection went to my ears and I was in a lot of pain. I was at the dentist one day for a regular cleaning and the dentist noticed my tonsils were almost touching in the back of my throat. He asked me if I was in pain and I said yes that my dad had told me it was because I was eating bagels instead of cereal. He asked if my father had ever been in the medical field to which I answered no. He typed out a letter for me to give to my dad to get me to an ENT ASAP. I had surgery 2 weeks later. After the surgery I had some friends come to visit me. He heard me laughing through my bedroom door and told me if I could laugh with my friend then I was feeling better and could go back to school. I moved out 2 years later but the degrading and belittling treatment continued into my 40’s. I finally cut contact with him 5 years ago after one of his rages and silent treatments. Life has been wonderfully peaceful ever since!
Five times to just be quiet
As a doctor, what is your ‘how are you alive’ moment?
He came into the ER looking really good, in fact. Neatly dressed, 70+ with a lot of grey hair and a sympathetic smile (although much of the smiling had faded now). His wife was with him, and she looked only a little worried.
Her husband had turned sick during the day, and he had reached a point where he hardly could stop vomiting. The abdominal pains had increased over time, and so they decided to pay a visit to the emergency room — you never know.
His condition worsened so incredibly fast in the ER, that they there wasn’t any time left to wait for medical imaging and the like — this man had to be opened, ASAP.
And so the general surgeon on call (who arrived within 20 minutes) and a trainee (who still was in the hospital) started the procedure. And when they had opened him up, they looked at each other and read each other’s minds without saying a thing. And then shrugged.
An extreme case of bowel infarction — also known as “gangrenous bowel.” The man’s entire bowel was bluish-black (but mostly black), and had died due to a shortage of blood flow. The abdominal cavity was severely infected, and he was going into sepsis as they spoke.
In some sense, it was a miracle that this poor man had walked into the hospital all by himself, looking healthy and in good spirits, accompanied by his poor wife who was currently eagerly waiting for her husband, whom she would never see again.
Because apart from dying, he was actually dead when he entered the ER.
Autumn Apple Cider Doughnuts
Ingredients
Equipment
- Doughnut pan
Doughnuts
- 1 cup apple cider
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon apple pie spice (or cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger)
- Zest of 1/2 lemon (optional)
- 2 tablespoons salted butter, melted
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup sour cream or Greek yogurt
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Coating
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Instructions
Doughnuts
- Reduce the apple cider by simmering in a small saucepan over low heat for about 30 minutes, until you have 1/2 cup left. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes.
- Heat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a donut pan. Set aside.
- Whisk the flour, baking powder and spices together in a large bowl. Set aside.
- Mix the melted butter, egg, brown sugar, lemon zest, sour cream or Greek yogurt and vanilla extract together. Add the reduced apple cider and pour into the dry ingredients.
- Whisk everything together until smooth and combined, but do not overmix.
- Spoon the batter into the donut pan, or use a piping bag with a large tip, if possible to make it easier. Fill each donut space about 3/4 full.
- Bake for about 12 minutes or until the edges and tops are lightly browned and a wooden pick inserted comes out clean.
- Let doughnuts cool for 2 minutes then transfer to a wire rack.
Coating
- Combine the granulated sugar and cinnamon together in a medium bowl.
- Melt the butter in another bowl. Once cool enough to handle, dip each donut into the melted butter, then generously into the coating.
Notes
Doughnuts are best served immediately.
Leftovers keep well covered tightly at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Russian military
How One Man’s Grudge Led to an Unthinkable Crime
Imagine the horror of discovering your infant son, lifeless in his crib on Father’s Day. This was the grim reality for Amy Shanabarger. Her seven-month-old son, Tyler, appeared to have succumbed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but the truth was far more sinister.
In a confession that shocked the nation, Ronald L. Shanabarger admitted to suffocating his own child with plastic wrap. His motive? Revenge. The origins of this twisted act of vengeance trace back to 1996 when Amy, then his girlfriend, refused to cut short a vacation to comfort Ronald after his father’s death. Shanabarger decided that he would make Amy feel the same devastating loss he felt, a plan so cruel and calculated that it is difficult for the rational mind to comprehend.
Shanabarger’s plan was meticulous. He married Amy, had a child with her, allowed her to bond deeply with their son, and then, in a cold and calculated move, took the boy’s life. The sheer premeditation is chilling. On the evening of June 19, 1999, Shanabarger wrapped plastic around Tyler’s head and left the nursery to get something to eat and brush his teeth. Twenty minutes later, he returned, removed the plastic, and placed Tyler’s lifeless body face down in his crib before going to bed. Amy, who had worked late as a grocery store cashier, went straight to bed upon returning home, only to discover Tyler’s body the next morning, on Father’s Day.
The following day, just hours after Tyler’s funeral, Shanabarger confessed to his wife that he had smothered their son. He later confessed to police multiple times, each confession consistent with the others, revealing that his motive was rooted in the rage he felt when Amy refused to cut short a cruise to be with him after his father’s death in October 1996.
The reaction to Shanabarger’s confession was swift and severe. He was charged with murder and held without bail. His cold, distant demeanor during the investigation stood in stark contrast to his wife’s grief. Amy Shanabarger, returning home from work that night, went to bed assuming Tyler was asleep, only to find his lifeless body the next morning. The emotional devastation of such a discovery, compounded by the betrayal of her husband, is unimaginable.
Johnson County Prosecutor Lance Hamner grappled with whether to seek the death penalty, while forensic psychiatrist Neil S. Kaye remarked on the rarity and complexity of such a calculated crime. Shanabarger’s actions, he suggested, indicated a potential delusional state, raising questions about his mental capacity.
Shanabarger’s trial, a spectacle of grief and anger, concluded with his conviction on May 8, 2002. As the verdict was read, Shanabarger muttered in shock, a stark contrast to the seething anger of Amy Parsons, who denounced him through tears. Her father, Robert Parsons, grimly predicted that Shanabarger would “burn in hell” for his actions.
Judge Raymond Kickbush, in sentencing Shanabarger to 49 years in prison, cited the man’s lack of prior convictions and his diminished mental capacity. The decision left the Parsons family stunned, though they found some solace in the partial justice served.
In a world that often defies understanding, the story of Ronald Shanabarger stands as a dark reminder of how deep-seated grudges and mental instability can culminate in unthinkable acts of violence. The reverberations of Tyler’s death will be felt for years to come, a poignant example of the intersection of personal vendetta and profound tragedy.
Tucker Carlson : WOW, this is Really Taking Place
USA direct fighting against Russia.
During The Great Depression They Were Called “Hoovervilles”, But Today America’s Shantytowns Are Called “Bidenvilles”
To those at the bottom of America’s economic pyramid, it feels like the economy has already collapsed. When you can’t afford to put a roof over your head and you barely have enough food to eat, nothing else really matters. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, millions of homeless Americans created large shantytowns known as “Hoovervilles” all over America. Unfortunately, we are witnessing the same thing today. Our homeless population is rapidly exploding, and those that have nowhere to live are creating shelters for themselves out of wood, cardboard boxes, tents, tarps, construction materials and whatever else they can find. In some cases, very large shantytown communities are being established, and they are primarily populated by our young adults…
During the Great Depression (1929 to 1933), 48 percent of the nation was homeless, living with relatives or in “shantytowns,” “Hoovervilles.” Today, between 47 and 52 percent of young adults are homeless, living with parents or shelters, a direct result of Biden’s radical overspending, energy and immigration policies, inflation, and high interest, turning America into a giant “Bidenville.”
One “Bidenville” that has been getting a lot of attention recently is located in Oakland, California.
A video of that “Bidenville” that was posted on social media on May 31st shows “massive temporary houses built along service roads”…
Shocking footage has emerged showing a gigantic ‘shantytown’ that has sprung up in Oakland, as the California city’s slide into crime-ravaged squalor continues.
Michael Oxford, the host of CaliBased, posted a video on May 31 of massive temporary houses built along service roads that open up into main roads in Hooverville, Oakland.
The footage showed trash strewn around scores of houses that were built of wood, tarp and other discarded materials.
I write about this stuff all the time, but it is still hard to believe that so many people are living in third world conditions in the United States of America in 2024.
The man that shot the video, Michael Oxford, used the term “absolute squalor” to describe the conditions that he witnessed…
Particularly shocking was just how large the ‘shantytown’ is, with a lengthy stretch of road in the Bay Area city covered with the makeshift dwellings.
Oxford could be heard calling the area a ‘shantytown’ that is ‘absolutely mindboggling,’ as he remarked how ‘insane it is that [city officials] allow this.’
He captioned the video, ‘Parts of Oakland are worse than a third world country. They just allow people to live in absolute squalor, wherever they choose.
If you live in “wealthy America”, you may never even drive into areas where people are living like this.
Your reality may be filled with tree-lined streets and rich people sipping coffee.
But in the worst areas of Oakland, the lawlessness never ends.
In fact, authorities in Oakland recently removed traffic lights at one major intersection and replaced them with stop signs because thieves were constantly stealing copper wire from the electrical boxes…
The city of Oakland recently removed traffic lights from one busy intersection and replaced them with stop signs after the electrical boxes that controlled the traffic lights were repeatedly tampered with and copper from them was stolen.
Local residents and those who own businesses in the area say the issue with the traffic lights stems from the nearby homeless encampment, which has grown over the years.
The owner of a vehicle repair shop on the corner of the intersection, Tam Le, said the city is signaling that it is ‘giving up on us,’ by installing the stop signs.
If you want someone to blame for this mess, you can blame the politicians in Washington.
Thanks to the horrific inflation that they have created, approximately a quarter of the population in California is either living in poverty or is very close to living in poverty…
Biden needn’t worry about losing California to Trump, but it has one of the nation’s highest rates of inflation, according to Moody’s Analytics, worsening its already outlandishly high costs of housing and other living expenses. It’s the biggest factor in California having the highest level of functional poverty of any state, 13.2% according to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 50% higher than the national rate.
The Public Policy Institute of California, using similar statistical methodology, has found that a quarter of Californians are either living in poverty or financially close. More recently, the PPIC has explored the impact of inflation, especially on California families which struggle to pay for housing, food and other necessities.
Sadly, this is just the beginning, because our economy is going downhill really fast.
In May, pending home sales plunged to a depressingly low level…
Well, the analysts had the direction right but magnitude was way off as pending home sales plunged 7.7% MoM – the biggest drop since Feb 2021 (and below the lowest estimate), leaving sales down 0.7% YoY…
This is the 29th straight month of YoY declines for non-seasonally-adjusted pending home sales.
This MoM decline pushed the Pending Home Sales Index back to record lows…
Meanwhile, Zero Hedge reported that the Chicago PMI index fell so low in May that it suggested that “the economy is in a depression”…
After unexpectedly slumping last month to 37.9, the Chicago PMI index cratered even more unexpectedly in May, when it defied hopes of a rebound to 41.5, and instead tumbled even more, sliding to a cycle low of 35.4 which was not only below the lowest estimate, but was staggeringly low. To get a sense of just how low, the last two times it printed here was during the peak of the covid and global financial crises…
… which seems to suggest that at least according to Chicago-based purchasing managers, the economy is in a depression.
I would agree with that assessment.
Things are getting really bad out there.
To top everything off, in May the Dallas Fed Services Sector survey was in contraction territory for the 24th month in a row…
Despite Bernstein and Biden demanding the great unwashed realize just how great they have it in America, this morning’s Dallas Fed Services Sector survey offers some insights from actual real people in the actual real world trying to do actual real business… and it’s not pretty.
For two straight years (24 straight months), the Texas Services sector has been in contraction (below zero) with May’s -12.1 print worse than expected. For context, the Great Recession of 2008/2009 also saw 24 straight months of negative prints…
But if you live in “wealthy America”, you may not care about these numbers because you still live in a nice home and you still have plenty of nice things.
Unfortunately, the number of people that can afford to live in “wealthy America” is shrinking with each passing day.
And the gap between the wealthy and the rest of us just continues to get larger and larger.
Ultimately, the stage is being set for a societal meltdown of absolutely epic proportions.
The bottom 50 percent of the population only owns just 2.6 percent of all the wealth, and they are becoming very restless.
When people have nothing left to lose, they become very desperate, and very desperate people do very desperate things.
What was it that surprised you the most about your new neighbors?
A very long time ago, I was neighbors with this woman. She was very down-to-earth, had lots of common sense, strong work ethics and quite some disdain for her relaxed husband.
One weird thing of hers was that her nickname did not match her first or second names. Which is usually the case over here, since people “shorten” your name to a common nickname or diminutive.
Her sister was quite wealthy and used to show up from time to time at her humble abode. They were actually really fun people. Very sarcastic.
We had a healthy amount of respect for one another. She never treated me like a kid, and was always very straightforward in her ways. She was a natural bullshit detector, even when said truths were uncomfortable or unpleasing.
Since I moved, every once in a while I would drop by and visit on her request. We would talk and she would often share wisdom (or gossip).
“So hey, how did you meet your husband?” I asked her once.
“In a cabaret.” she said.
“What?” I interjected in surprise.
“Yeah, he was a John.’ she said and then laughed. “My sister owns one and I happened to work there.”
Yes, she was a prostitute. That nickname was her alias.
All her three beautiful children did never know that their mother used to work as one.
I will never tell them.
What is your biggest “only in the USA” moment?
A student threatened to sue me over the way I’d graded his homework.
Well ok, he threatened to sue the university because of the way I’d graded his homework. But I do remember thinking that I’d definitely had the full American experience when that happened.
Here’s how it happened…
I was a teaching assistant on an introductory astronomy class for undergraduate students. I taught a lab class of 20 or so students, and I graded their homework assignments.
One of my students had terrible hand writing, and really wasn’t putting much effort into presenting his work clearly. I couldn’t decipher some of his work so I graded him down on some of the answers. He came to see me after class and he deciphered his work for me and I could see that he had got the correct answer. I advised him that sometimes it’s not enough to know the right answer, you also have to be able to demonstrate that you know. But I gave him the extra points for the assignment and told him he was always welcome to query my grading, that I was not infallible.
He responded – “Thanks. I hope to go to law school so it’s important to me that I always fight my corner.”
Ok I thought, weird response but he’s young, whatever.
The next week the professor teaching the course told us that he was trying to focus in class on the difference between accuracy and precision, and that even if some of the students forgot all he ever taught them about astronomy, he hoped that understanding the difference between accuracy and precision would prove useful to them in future years. He instructed us to grade the homework accordingly.
My student’s homework came in, a mess again, and with some wrong answers and some ambiguous ones. So I graded him down for those.
Sure enough, he came to see me after class.
The first question showed a picture of the crescent moon, and asked students to indicate where the terminator was. He drew three arrows pointing to three different parts of the moon, saying basically “there, or there, or there”. Only one of the lines pointed to the terminator (the division between night and day on the moon) the other lines pointed to the edges of the moon on both the day and the night side. Well clearly he didn’t know the answer. When he came to see me he admitted as much, so I explained.
He said “well I thought that was possible, that’s why it’s one of the options I gave you”. Like he was setting me a multiple choice quiz!
I pointed out that he also gave me two incorrect answers.
“Well now I know which is correct, and I’ve demonstrated that I understand, so you should let me have the points.”
No, I told him, the time to demonstrate his understanding was when he handed in his homework, and he could have proven his understanding then by showing only the correct answer! He wasn’t happy, but we moved on.
Another question had students calculating the orbital period of Neptune, given that Neptune has a semi-major axis of 30 AU. If you plug in the numbers into a calculator it will give you an answer of 163.3167673 years, and that’s exactly what he (and others in the class) put. But it’s not correct. Wikipedia gives the orbital period as 164.8 years. There are three reasons why his answer was wrong, the first is that the formula that the class were expected to use (Kepler’s third law) is only an approximation, and the second (which is bigger than the first) is that Neptune’s semi-major axis is only approximately 30 AU (Wikipedia says 30.11 AU). Neither of those points were an issue; if there’s one science that doesn’t worry too much about approximations it’s astronomy. The real reason he was wrong was that he didn’t acknowledge that approximation; he provided more precision than was justified by the accuracy of the information we provided. By giving his answer to 7 decimal places he was claiming he knew the orbital period of Neptune to within 4 seconds. And he was out by 1.5 years, that’s a factor of 12 million! Given the information we provided, the answer I wanted to see was 160 years. I’d have given him full marks if he’d written 163 years, probably even 163.3 years. 200 years would have been accurate if you’d assumed precision to the nearest 100. But, as the professor instructed, I deducted a couple of points because his excessive precision meant that his answer was wrong.
Well, he didn’t like my explanation. He demanded the extra points! Precision is a good thing surely! I offered to take more time to try and explain some more, but he stormed out. I spent the week thinking of ways to explain the subtle difference more clearly, because he wasn’t the only one in my class that was struggling with it. But he never showed up at any of my classes after that.
A few days later the professor got in touch. The student had complained and wanted me fired! I was teaching students to be less precise in their work! I explained the situation and the professor said it sounded about right. He said he’d completely backed me up and I suspect he wasn’t quite as diplomatic as I tried to be. I didn’t have any further involvement in the case but the professor kept me updated.
The student tried to drop out of the class but the university informed him that he was too far through the semester to do that without paying the tuition fees. He tried to argue that the professor and I had a vendetta against him and he couldn’t expect a fair grade. The professor assured the university that this wasn’t the case. Then he demanded a meeting with someone senior, and he brought his Mom along, who was a lawyer (surprise surprise). They let the university know that they would be beginning legal actions if it didn’t back down, so back down it did. I understand why the university didn’t bother fighting the case, but I thought it was a shame. I thought it would have done him some good if Mr I-Always-Fight-My-Corner learnt that sometimes you lose, especially when you are in the wrong. Maybe a more important life lesson than the difference between precision and accuracy.
The following week I did take the time to explain the difference again. I told them a joke…
A man walks into the natural history museum and looks up at the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex and says aloud “I wonder how old that is”.
A janitor, mopping the floor nearby, comes over and says “that dinosaur is 80 million and 16 years old”.
“Oh really?” Says the man.
“Yes, I know that because I asked the very same question when I started working here 16 years ago today.”
Nobody laughed. That’s ok I said, I didn’t say it was a good joke, but I can tell by the way you all rolled your eyes that you ‘got’ it. 80 million years is accurate if you assume a precision of a few million or a few tens of million years. But you all understand why the janitor was wrong to believe he knew the age of the dinosaur to the nearest year.
None of my students made the same mistake in any of their homework assignments after that.
The Time Thief
Submitted into Contest #251 in response to: Write a story about discovering a lost manuscript. It can be from a famous (or infamous) author, or an unknown one.… view prompt
Poe’s response was immediate and intense, providing a fertile ground for deeper discussion. “Ah, sir, you understand the darkness of the soul entwined with the light of creativity,” Poe remarked, his voice tinged with a melancholic timbre. Their conversation quickly moved from the public earshot to the intimate setting of Poe’s study.
The study was a chaos of inspiration—papers strewn like fallen leaves in autumn, books stacked in teetering columns of thought. Simon’s heart raced as he eyed the manuscripts cluttering the desk. In a moment of distraction for Poe, his gaze fell upon a specific stack of papers penned in a hurried yet deliberate script.
Topics and metaphors unknown to the scholars of Simon’s time beckoned from those pages. The lure of academic glory flickered before him, stirring a tempest of ethical and temporal dilemmas. His plan emerged almost fully formed—a theft that would echo through the centuries but could brand him an eternal brigand in the annals of time.
Weeks passed, and a cordial invitation to a social gala at Poe’s abode presented the perfect milieu for his surreptitious intent. Under the guise of evening air necessity, Simon navigated back to the tempest of paper and ink. The manuscript was now in his grasp, a treasure far more potent than mere gold. Yet, in his haste, Simon’s modern smartphone—a slab of technology utterly alien to the 19th century—slipped from his pocket, left on Poe’s mahogany desk.
With a swirling cloak and a heart pounding against the corset of his own deceit, Simon returned to his era, leaving behind an anachronism that would unravel time’s tightly knit fabric.
The morning sun, indifferent in its rise, found Edgar Allan Poe in contemplative solitude. As light spilled across his desk, the unusual sheen of the abandoned smartphone caught his attention. It lay there, stark and intrusive among the soft yellowing papers of his literary endeavors. Curiosity, that relentless driver of human behavior, prompted Poe to reach for the device, his fingertips brushing against the cold, smooth surface. The screen flickered to life at his touch, illuminating his face with a pale, eerie glow.
Simon, safely ensconced back in his time, felt the immediate ripple of his accidental influence. The Baltimore he returned to bore scant resemblance to the one he had left. Buildings bristled with unfathomable technology, the skyline jagged with the spires of progress grown wild, fed by an anachronistic seed. His stomach churned with the realization that history had veered catastrophically off course.
Poe, meanwhile, was originally viewed as the harbinger of this new era. Word spread through the city with the speed of fire through dry timber. The enigmatic device held secrets of light and knowledge, screens within screens—miracles undreamed of even in the fevered pitches of the most fantastical literatures.
It wasn’t long before Poe was thronged by the curious and the ambitious, their minds alight with possibilities. Inventors, scholars, rogues—they all wanted a piece of the future unveiled. Each touch, each interaction spun a new thread of history, weaving a tapestry far removed from the one Simon knew.
Back in his altered present, Dr. Simon Dorset was consumed by an urgent need to correct this unintended aberration. The historical and cultural legacy of Poe, once defined by his mysterious and macabre tales, was now overshadowed by a technological boom he had unwittingly initiated. Simon’s own research spiraled into obsolescence; the Poe he revered was lost to a world dazzled by premature progress.
The gravity of his error was a weight he could barely sustain. Turning to his colleagues and historical chronicles yielded only scant mentions of Poe—the poet and author were eclipsed by Poe, the accidental father of a technological revolution. Simon’s isolation grew, paralleled only by his desperation.
Resolving to undo the harm, Simon reactivated his time machine, dismissing the cascade of warnings displayed by the machine’s diagnostics. The temporal navigational systems, designed to prevent precisely such paradoxes, blared their reluctance in stark red warnings across the interface. But Simon pushed forward, driven by a near-mad obsession to restore the literary giant’s legacy.
As the machine whirred to life, encasing him in a cocoon of pulsating energy, Simon felt the pull of temporal forces contorting the fabric of reality. A misstep in calculations, coupled with the machine’s strained capabilities, wrenched Simon from his intended course. The world around him blurred—an array of colors and sounds, history replaying all its possibilities simultaneously.
He found himself trapped, a ghost in the looping scenes of his interactions with Poe. Each cycle through the loop sharpened his understanding of the cascading consequences of his actions, yet he remained powerless to intervene directly. His presence was spectral, an observer cursed to watch his folly unfold in perpetuity.
Amidst the ceaseless cycles, a flicker of anomaly caught his attention. Brief moments appeared where versions of himself overlapped—past, present, and future converging. It was an unintended side effect of the time stream’s fracture, a shimmering crack in the oppressive wall of endless repetition.
With renewed purpose, the Simon Dorsets of different times began to recognize each other. An understanding sparked between them, each iteration contributing his unique perspective on the predicament. Together, they constructed a plan—a message ensconced within the digital confines of the smartphone, coding it into the metadata of the device. A cryptic puzzle designed for Poe’s keen and curious mind, leading him to restore the timeline undisturbed by technological marvels.
The contriving of the message was meticulous, a maneuver engineered with the precision of a master clockmaker. Hidden within the coding, Simon embedded the instructions—a route back to temporal stability, crafted specifically to attract Edgar Allan Poe’s intrigue with cryptology and the unknown. It was more than just a recovery mission; it was an appeal to Poe’s intellectual appetites, a call to explore and unravel the mystery set before him.
The loop provided Simon endless opportunities to refine his approach, each iteration fine-tuning the message embedded in the strange artifact from the future. When Poe finally discovered the embedded instructions, hidden amidst what appeared to be common applications, it struck a chord deep within his writer’s soul—a mystery woven by fate or circumstance, begging to be unraveled.
His brows furrowed, Poe set about deciphering the cryptic clues with a zeal that had often been reserved for his literary compositions. The message guided him to a precise location, an act in itself harmless but pivotal—a secluded corner of the Baltimore docks at dawn, where the water whispered secrets to those patient enough to listen.
Meanwhile, Simon watched these moments unfold, his heart thrumming with a mix of hope and apprehension. The plan was simple yet reliant on Poe’s willingness to engage with the unknown without fully understanding the forces at play. It was a gamble, staking everything on the intellectual curiosity of one man.
As the appointed time approached, Poe, cloak billowing behind him in the pre-dawn wind, approached the designated spot. He carried the device, its screen dim in the soft light. Following the last of the instructions, he left the smartphone nestled within an old fish crate, obscure and seemingly inconspicuous.
The crate, Simon knew from his meticulous studies of the timeline, would be destroyed in a warehouse mishap mere hours later, the smartphone lost forever, consumed by the flames—an incident that originally occurred without historical significance but now charged with the weight of resetting history.
Simon’s vision blurred, the looping finally slowing, reality solidifying with the promise of release. As the time streams began to align, the world around him steadied, the oppressive weight of temporal distortion lifting. The colors and sounds that had haunted his senses merged into the rightful hues of his time.
When he next stepped out of the machine, the air was different—fresher, somehow more correct with the essence of his original timeline. Buildings, people, the very atmosphere buzzed with subtle but significant changes back to the familiar. Poe’s literary legacy had been restored to its rightful place, his technological influence erased as if it were merely a ghost story, fittingly ephemeral.
Simon Dorset found himself back in his study, the walls lined with books, the familiar scent of paper and ink a soothing balm. His heart, though weary from the journey, was buoyed by the restoration of history. His respect for the delicate fabric of time had deepened, each tick of the clock now a reminder of the dance between chance and choice.
He resumed his academic pursuits with a newfound reverence for the past’s fragility and the unknown variables of history. The world around him continued, blissfully unaware of the catastrophe averted, a tale of what-if preserved only in the quiet confines of Simon’s experience.
In his diary, filled with the wild scribblings of his adventure, Simon penned a final note—an acknowledgment of the power held by both time and literature, the twin forces of creation and destruction. He wrote, “In our pursuits, we must tread lightly upon the tapestries of the past, for they are woven with the threads of potentiality, delicate and profound.”
The sun set over a world untouched yet changed in ways unseen, as Simon Dorset closed his diary, the book of his extraordinary journey through time concluding with the silent assurance that some mysteries, like some manuscripts, were best left unaltered.
What did “that plumber” do that infuriated you?
I had hired a plumbing company, after seeing an add for cheap bathroom renovations. I wanted an excellent bathroom, but their ad, appeared to show that they had the skills .
So I gave them a list of what I wanted, the type of faucets, the brand of jetted tub, the color of granite for the counter. The undersunk sink. , the floor and shower tile, heated towel racks, Etc
Then I asked them how much it would cost. They gave me an estimate, and I came home from work, and they had arborite countertops, a standard tub, different faucets , linoleum for the floor, all sitting in my entrance way waiting to be installed.
I told the guy that I had ordered something completely different. He told me, not at the price they were quoting me. I showed him the form I had filled in.
He claims that he never saw it before, he gave me the estimate, yet somehow he had my heated towel rack.
If the timing has been just a little different, it would have all been installed before I saw it.
They never apologized, but I finally got the bathroom I wanted, but I had to pay a bit extra.
Vintage Aviation
“Whole Country is Turned into B*tch Ass N***ga” – Dave Chappelle
What was the most legendary “I quit!” that you know about or witnessed?
Originally Answered: What was the most legendary "I quit!" that you know about or witnessed?
Some business owners never learn that you shouldn’t screw the “little” people.
One of my good friends had an epic “I quit” moment. When he was young he worked as a dishwasher for a large, busy restaurant. He became friends with a guy named Sam that he washed dishes with. My friend, Jim, noticed after a couple of weeks that a nonexistent tax was being deducted from his paycheck. He confronted the owner who claimed it was an error. She stopped deducting the tax from Jim’s check but not from Sam’s or any of the other employees, some of whom did not speak fluent English.
Jim let Sam and the other kitchen staff know about it. When Sam went to speak to the owner she simply bamboozled him since he was not a savvy person. She refused to stop the deduction. Maybe she assumed her employees wouldn’t compare notes or do anything about it, I don’t know. I’ve seen dishonest business owners do similar things too many times. It’s just incomprehensibly stupid.
Jim and Sam agreed that they would quit and they chose a busy Saturday night. For most of the night they slowly, very slowly washed very few dishes letting the rest pile up. The cook even came over and fearfully whispered “What are you guys doing?” At some point the restaurant was out of clean glasses, cups and plates and the owner came into the kitchen screaming at them. Jim took the towel off his shoulder, flipped it to her and said, “You do ‘em.” as he and Sam walked out.
My 16-year-old son has a full beard and won’t shave. What should I do? How do I get him to shave it off? Should I just do it myself while he’s asleep?
I know someone who did this. A close friend of mine had long hair when he was 16, which his mom hated. Our school sent several notices to him and his parents about him looking uncouth.
While he was lounging on the couch one day, his frustrated mom caught him unaware and chopped it all off haphazardly with a scissors she had in hand. He wasn’t asleep, but he still did not see it coming.
He hated her for doing that. He harbored that pain and humiliation for a long long time, for years after that.
It has been 10 years to that incident, and he still hasn’t forgiven her for it. It drove a wedge between them.
He hated having her decision forced on him. He hated being cheated like that. He hated being caught unaware.
I get it. You don’t like his hair. Tell him that, but don’t force your decision on him.
You would much rather live irritated for a while, than having a wedge driven in your relationship.
If he is rebelling against you, he will grow out of it.
Explain to him calmly once, and leave it at that. Your constant nagging will get you nowhere.
Believe it or not, like it or not, physical appearances are a sensitive issue for a lot of people. Teens are no different.
It’s none of your business really.
And if you decide to shave him while he is asleep, he may not report you but-
He will hate you for the rest of your life.
It’s not worth it.
America In 2024: Fast Food Is A “Luxury”, 11 Million Children Live In Poverty, And 1000s Of Stores Are Closing
Little by little, our standard of living has been eroding. A couple decades ago, we had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now most of the country is struggling. At this point, fast food is considered to be a “luxury”, 11 million children are living in poverty, and thousands of stores are permanently shutting down all over the United States because consumers have so little discretionary income these days. We are in the midst of a historic cost of living crisis, and those at the bottom of the economic food chain are being hit the hardest.
The ultra-wealthy don’t really care that food costs have been soaring, but for those that are barely scraping by from month to month it makes an enormous difference.
Once upon a time, fast food restaurants were where those that were struggling went to eat.
But now fast food is considered to be a “luxury” in 2024, and that is because fast food prices have gone absolutely haywire…
A Big Mac sandwich at McDonald’s, for example, cost $3.99 in 2019. Now, that price has more than doubled to $8.29, according to Fast Food Menu Prices, an online tracker.
Gone, too, are the days of the $5 Footlong at Subway. A BLT Footlong that cost $5.50 in 2019 now costs customers $8.49 in 2024, though prices can vary by location. Additionally, Chipotle’s beloved chicken burrito that cost $6.50 in 2019 now runs customers $10.70.
Fast-food executives have pointed to rising wages and increased costs for ingredients as factors driving up the prices on their menus.
I am sitting here looking at those numbers and I still can’t wrap my head around them.
I never imagined that I would see the day when it took more than 8 dollars to buy a Big Mac.
That is insane!
A different survey that was recently conducted by Lending Tree discovered that almost 80 percent of all Americans believe that fast food is a “luxury item” now…
Nearly 80 percent of Americans now consider fast food to be a “luxury item” as families feel the squeeze from the Biden regime’s failing economy.
According to a survey from Lending Tree of around 2,000 adults, what was once considered an affordable option for low-income workers is fast becoming the opposite.
Meanwhile, the number of American children living in poverty continues to increase with each passing day.
If you can believe it, we are being told that over 11 million U.S. children are now living in poverty…
More than 11 million children were estimated to be living in poverty in 2021, according to U.S. Census Bureau data published by the Children’s Defense Fund.
That equates to around one in seven children in the U.S., or 15.3 percent. It’s a high toll, and one even higher than the adult population, which was 10.5 percent for 19-64 year olds that year and 10.3 percent for adults aged 65+.
According to an analysis by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, this difference is due to factors such as the “cost of caregiving and its responsibilities, transitions to a single parenthood household, unemployment of parents, and disabilities of family members.”
Today, approximately 40 percent of the entire country is considered to be either living in poverty or among the ranks of “the working poor”, and 42 million Americans are on food stamps.
We now have an absolutely gigantic “underclass” that is largely made up of people that were once solidly middle class.
The rapidly rising cost of living is just shredding families from coast to coast.
In Montana, one senior is incredibly frustrated because his property taxes have increased by 790 percent over the past several years…
A senior from Montana has delivered a viral speech about the sorry state of property taxes in the Treasure State.
“I’m on Social Security, I’m 68-years-old and working just to pay my taxes,” says Kurt, in a clip shared on TikTok by Ryan Busse, who is running to be the next governor of Montana.
Kurt claims that over the last couple of years, his annual property taxes have soared from $895 to almost $8,000 — an increase of around 790% — which he says is like paying almost “$700 a month rent to the state to live in our own house.” The state has an Elderly Homeowner/Renter Tax Credit, and the maximum credit is $1,150.
His property taxes have skyrocketed because property values have skyrocketed.
And property values have skyrocketed because our leaders flooded the system with way too much money.
Small businesses are being monkey-hammered by inflation as well.
In fact, one recent survey found that 86 percent of all U.S. small businesses say that they are being hurt by inflation…
An overwhelming majority of small business owners say they are being hurt by rising prices.
The new survey released Wednesday by small business network Alignable shows 86% reporting being hurt by high costs with only 6% saying they are thriving and not struggling.
Alignable surveyed more than 3,000 business owners from mid-April to mid-May and found that they overwhelmingly lament the burden of inflation.
Dollar stores in particular are being hit really hard by rising costs.
For example, 99 Cents Only has decided to close all of their stores because conditions have changed so dramatically…
For years, dollar stores were a fixture in nearly every strip mall in California, offering cheap household goods, bread and produce, and even toys and gifts.
But if it seems like your favorite dollar store is heading for the exit, you’re not wrong.
2024 may be their swan song.
In April, California-based 99 Cents Only announced it was closing all 371 locations after decades in business. The retailer blamed economic factors, including rising levels of “shrink,” inflation, and shifting consumer demand that has presented “significant and lasting challenges.”
Not to be outdone, Dollar Tree has announced that it will be closing about 1,000 stores…
Dollar Tree, which owns Family Dollar, recently said it will close nearly 1,000 stores. That’s after Dollar Tree raised prices in the past couple of years for the first time in decades.
Overall, so far in 2024 retailers have already announced that they will be closing nearly 3,200 stores, and we haven’t even reached the mid-point of the year yet…
The retail industry is going through a tough time as it copes with inflation-weary consumers and a rash of bankruptcies, prompting chains to announce the closures of almost 3,200 brick-and-mortar stores so far in 2024, according to a new analysis.
That’s a 24% increase from a year ago, according to a report from retail data provider CoreSight, which tracks store closures and openings across the U.S.
The final countdown for the U.S. economy has begun, but most Americans do not even realize what is happening.
Most Americans just assume that our leaders can fix things by printing even more money and that conditions will “return to normal” eventually.
But the truth is that there isn’t going to be a “return to normal”, because this is about as “normal” as things are going to get.
It has taken decades of horrendous decisions to get us to this point, and now we are steamrolling toward economic oblivion.
If you think that our leaders in Washington will be able to turn this ship around, you are just being delusional.
Why 70s Kids Are The Strongest Generation
What was the most legendary “I quit!” that you know about or witnessed?
Originally Answered: What was the most legendary "I quit!" that you know about or witnessed?
A no-brainer. The image is forever etched in my mind:
One of the guys I used to work with was a battle-worn veteran of the stock market, though only in his mid-thirties. He’d seen it all and been through it all, and made little effort to conceal his fatigue with all of it. He’d only been working at the company for about 3 months before I was hired. He’d show up every day, and from opening to closing bell, he would go through the motions, buying and selling, and arguing, cursing, hand-waving, you name it. No one would mistake him for being pleasant, or describe him as friendly, but he was an amusing theatrical performance.
One day we struck up a brief but insightful conversation. He’d had a pretty rough exchange with a client earlier that day, and I was hoping to glean insight into why he seemed so reckless at times. Apparently he’d only taken the job to hold him over until his father’s company -which he had invested a good chunk of money in- was acquired. His father had told him the deal should be done within two more months. I jokingly asked him if he thought he’d last that long without getting fired, and he said something to me that forever altered my perspective on wealth building: “I don’t give a shit about this job. In a few months, I will have ‘fuck you money’, and I’ll never have to work another day in my life.” I googled the term within minutes of our exchange.
A few weeks later, a few of us were chatting and he shared that he was an avid boater. He intended to retire, have a few kids, and spend his time on the water. He said the moment the funds were wired into his account, he was heading straight to the docks, and would never be seen again.
About a month later, he shows up to work with his boating hat and sunglasses, unusually calm and aloof. The day proceeds as usual, but moments after the closing bell, he stands up and puts his hat and sunglasses on in an oddly ceremonious manner. A few of us take notice. He turns around, looks at us, and with the grin of a free man, he raises his hand in salute, then walks out the door.
We never heard from him again.
Joining BRICS+ ‘good alternative’ to EU: Turkiye
Turkiye’s interest in joining BRICS+ will be discussed at the bloc’s upcoming foreign ministers’ meeting this month
JUN 4, 2024
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on 4 June during a trip to China that his country is interested in joining the BRICS+ group of emerging economies.
“Certainly, we would like to become a member of BRICS. So, we’ll see how it goes this year,” Fidan was cited as saying on Tuesday by the South China Morning Post (SCMP) newspaper.
Fidan noted that since some European nations have opposed Turkiye’s joining the EU, authorities in Ankara are considering BRICS+ as a “good alternative.”
“We cannot ignore the fact that BRICS, as an important cooperation platform, offers some other countries a good alternative. We see potential in BRICS,” the Turkish diplomat said.
SCMP also cited Fidan as saying that he hopes to attend the BRICS+ foreign ministers meeting scheduled for this month in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod.
“One of the topics on the agenda is expected to be the possibility of Turkey, a NATO ally, joining the BRICS grouping.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared an intention to join the bloc at its summit in Johannesburg six years ago, yet little progress has been made since then.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov welcomed Ankara’s interest in joining the bloc in a statement on 4 June and confirmed that the topic would be up for discussion at the upcoming BRICS+ meeting in Russia.
Fidan held a press conference the same day with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Beijing.
“Bilateral ties with China will contribute to regional and global peace, as well as prosperity and stability,” Fidan said during the conference.
China is the most important state within the BRICS group, accounting for over half of the GDP of all BRICS+ countries.
A coalition initially made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, BRICS at the start of this year expanded for the first time since 2010 to include Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, and the UAE.
After Russia became the most sanctioned nation in the world in 2022 following the start of the war in Ukraine, the BRICS bloc began seriously pursuing the creation of a common currency to de-dollarize trade and circumvent Washington’s weaponization of the western financial system.
This Is Destroying Men’s Fertility
Have you as a nurse ever lied to your patient’s family?
I’m a doctor but had a situation that I found myself in where I was asked to lie to a family by the patient. He was young man in his early 20s and I don’t remember all the particulars but suffice it to say he was bleeding somewhere internally and was severely anemic, and needed several blood transfusions before anything else could be done for him. We didn’t think he would survive the night without transfusing him because we were concerned about multi-organ failure, and had him in ICU. Unfortunately he was a Jehovah’s Witness and transfusions were not allowed. His mom and dad were at his bedside to inform us of this. Despite much pleading they were steadfast in their religious beliefs, and would not consent to blood transfusions.
They left when visiting hours were over, and shortly thereafter his nurse called me to his room. Long story short he asked for the transfusions, but did not want his parents to know. He explained he was not a committed Jehovah’s Witness but his parents didn’t know and would be devastated to find out he wasn’t, but he also wanted to live, and could we do 2 things? 1. he was of age and his was able to consent to receiving the transfusions, so he wanted them, and 2. could we be sure his parents never knew about it. The nurse staff was on board and anyone who objected was asked to speak up. None did
So we ran the transfusions overnight, and finished them and removed all the evidence before his parents came in the next day, they were overjoyed that he was still alive, their religious beliefs were upheld in their mind, and no one was the wiser. As it turned out I didn’t have to actually tell them a verbal lie, as they never asked me or the nurses anything directly, but I guess it was a lie of omission. The son never actually acknowledged anything to them either, allowing his parents to think their religious beliefs saved their son. There were a myriad of ways for them to have found out —maybe they could see his hospital bill later or something like that. But me and the nurses involved swore ourselves to secrecy so they weren’t going to find out from us.
I’ve wrestled with myself about that case over the years, but have always come to the conclusion I was respecting the patient’s wishes, and it was up to him to deal with his religious beliefs and his parents. I appreciated the nurses who were unhesitatingly in on it with me, as we were just trying to save a young man’s life. I never saw him again after he was discharged from the hospital.
Putin issues DIRE Warning to NATO and It’s No Bluff ft. Scott Ritter
How Exposing Yourself to Different Views Makes You Smarter and Wiser
As humans, we tend to surround ourselves with people and ideas that validate our existing beliefs and make us feel good about ourselves. We watch news channels that align with our political views, hang out with friends who share our interests and values, and read books and articles that support the way we already see the world.
In short, we live in a self-imposed intellectual bubble. And while this feels nice and comfy, it’s actually one of the worst things we can do if we want to grow, learn, and become wiser, more well-rounded people.
Here’s an idea that might make you uncomfortable: go out of your way to seek perspectives that are different from your own. Read books by authors whose views differ from yours. Watch TV shows and YouTube videos that espouse a different political ideology than yours. Strike up conversations with people from different backgrounds who have had very different life experiences.
In other words, intentionally burst your cognitive bubble. Yes, it will be mentally challenging. Yes, you’ll frequently feel frustrated, annoyed, and maybe even offended. But holy shit will you learn a lot.
See, as much conviction as you feel about your beliefs and opinions, guess what? People with different views feel just as strongly about theirs. They’ve arrived at their worldview through their own reasoning and life experiences, just like you have. And while you may think they’re horribly misguided, they almost certainly think the same about you.
So who’s actually right? Well, probably neither of you entirely. The truth is usually found somewhere in the middle ground between differing perspectives. But you’ll never realize that if you don’t genuinely open your mind and make an effort to understand where the other side is coming from. You don’t have to end up agreeing with them, but at least you’ll expand your own thinking in the process.
It’s also just straight up fascinating to learn how people with wildly different backgrounds see and experience the world. It gives you a fuller, richer understanding of the beautiful diversity of the human condition. And it builds the skill of empathy – the ability to inhabit someone else’s perspective.
In the end, intentionally exposing yourself to different views is both personally enriching and culturally valuable. It makes you a more intellectually humble, open-minded, knowledgeable person. And if more of us did it, I believe it would make for a more understanding, less polarized society.
After all, the world isn’t black and white. It’s an infinitely complex patchwork of clashing contexts, conflicting experiences, and differing dogmas. The more of that uncomfortable complexity we can embrace, the closer we’ll be to actual wisdom.
So attend that lecture by the philosopher whose ideas challenge your own. Read that book by the historian who interprets events differently than you do. Have a deep conversation with that person from a culture totally unlike yours. I promise it’ll be an eye-opening experience.
Have you ever been on a date that was going so badly you walked out and left?
Have you ever been on a date that was going so badly you walked out and left?
Hooo boy. Two notable ones come to mind. This may be an experience more unique to the Bay Area, but anyway…
I set up a date with this one woman. We’re both working professionals, in our 30s, etc so I can’t chalk her behavior up to youth or lack of social interaction. Though, this was a few years back so I don’t quite remember what she did for a living. Anyway.
We set a lunch date about halfway in between both our workplaces (~10 min away from each of us). I showed up 5 min early, and the place we chose can get pretty packed for lunch – meaning if you get there later, you’ll be waiting a while for food. Well….she texts me and says stuck in a meeting running a little bit late. Ok, no prob – I grab a table and sit down to wait. About 20 min later I ask her for an ETA….she says 15 min. Ok, I get it, meetings run over, 15 min is still not a horrible delay given travel time + 15 min delay from the meeting. Another 20 min goes by….call her – “hey, where are you…?” etc. She’s driving and “almost there”. Oook….she finally arrived about 10 min later. For those of you adding it up, that’s about an hour late. Not a great start.
Fortunately, it wasn’t a sit-down type of place, so I wasn’t wasting a waiter/waitresses’s time and tips to wait for her. We went up to order our food finally and she offered to buy lunch as an apology for being late. Ok…I’m flexible. Means I’ll stay a bit later at work but I could take a 2 hour lunch at the time. We eat, sit down, start chatting…annnnnd she starts asking me about my time in the military.
“So, did you go overseas?”
“Yes, I spent a few years overseas in Korea and Iraq/Kuwait.”
“Oh cool!” (Not the way I’d describe it, but ok…) “Did you ever have to kill anyone?”
“Thankfully, I don’t think so no, though I did see combat….it’s not exactly something anyone wants to have to do typically…” I tried to make it clear I wasn’t exactly a fan of this type of question through tone of voice and body language. She didn’t appear to notice, because…
“Did anyone you knew die?”
Again, I adopted a more curt tone and tried to make it clear this wasn’t a great line of questioning for a first date. Usually that question gets asked but phrased differently like “Did you lose anyone you knew” or simply “did you see combat”.
I replied “yes, several friends the second tour and one the first.”
Before I could even try and change the subject…
“How did they die???”
At this point I was pretty annoyed. We were sitting outside close to the parking lot and I sort of snapped “Well, one of them got shot by a sniper standing as close to me as we are to that car if that’s what you want to know.”
I shit you not, the next words out of her mouth, with no change in tone or anything, as casually as asking if I could pass the ketchup…
“Did he scream?”
Annnnnd that’s when I went off a bit. I let her know in no uncertain terms that her entire line of questioning wasn’t exactly ideal for a first date, and that she was lucky that despite my experiences I have my shit together and a great deal of self control – I know a few guys who would have likely snapped one way or another, either having a mental bout with depression and breaking down on the spot or going the opposite way to physical violence against the person who’d offended them with the questions. I let her know that asking anyone, military or not, if their friend screamed when they died was highly inappropriate under any circumstances.
Then I left and went back to work. Never heard from her again. No apology. No reaction whatsoever when I got angry with her. Just nothing.
I got over it, but that’s a date I doubt I’ll ever forget. And it’s not necessarily the facts of combat or anything – in the right company or circumstances I’ve actually got some funny stories from combat and Iraq/Korea in general, and don’t mind discussing the experiences. I don’t have any particular “triggers” or hardcore Hollywood-style PTSD or anything. But this….just….hell no.
Eggnog Doughnuts with Eggnog Rum Glaze
Yield: 4 donuts in a Wilton doughnut pan* and 1 dozen mini doughnuts in a Wilton mini-doughnut pan.
Ingredients
Doughnuts
- 1 tablespoon butter, melted
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 cup eggnog
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 3/4 cup + all-purpose flour**
Rum Eggnog Glaze
- 1/2 cup (or more) confectioners’ sugar
- 1 to 2 tablespoons eggnog
- 1/2 to 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 to 2 tablespoons rum (brandy, cognac, Grand Marnier, etc.)
Instructions
- Heat oven to 325 degrees F and coat the doughnut pan or muffin pan well with cooking-spray or grease.
Doughnuts
- In a microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter and to it add the sugars and egg and stir by hand for about 1 minute or until creamy.
- To the bowl, add the remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Do not over-mix as that increases the likelihood of tough doughnuts.
- Spoon the batter into doughnut pans or muffin pans. Do not overfill the cavities especially if making mini donuts.
- Bake for 9 to 11 minutes if making larger doughnuts or about 5 to 7 minutes if making mini-doughnuts. Bake until donuts spring back when touched or until dough is set. Donuts should be springy and may not be golden brown in color so don’t necessarily judge doneness by color; judge by texture.
- Allow to cool slightly before removing from pan, about 5 minutes.
Rum Eggnog Glaze
- While donuts are baking or cooling, make the frosting by combining all ingredients and whisking or stirring, until desired consistency is achieved.
- Frost the donuts after they have cooled.
- Add a final dusting of coconut flakes, orange zest, cinnamon-sugar mixture; sprinkles, or other extras at the end, as desired.
Notes
* You can make muffins rather than donuts if you don’t have a donut pan.
** To make gluten free, use your favorite gluten free flour blend.
Depending on the type of eggnog used, you may need to add more flour. Batter should be fairly thick – thicker than pancake or waffle batter, but not as thick as cookie dough. Add enough flour to get a fairly thick batter, possibly 1/4 cup more than is called for.
Is China in awe of the USA?
China used to be in awe of the US. Key word being “used to be”.
In the 1989 June 4th incident, protesting students erected a statue of liberty to show their admiration of the US. Chinese throughout the country listened to Voice of America to stay informed about the demonstrations. Throughout the 90’s and early 2000’s, returning overseas Chinese from US or other western countries were held in high regard. Chinese military leadership looked up to the US as their role model.
Then things started to change. The 2008 Tibetan riots, and the subsequent anti-China misinformation spread by CNN and other American news outlets caused widespread realization that the vaunted Western media was not so objective and unbiased after all. This was a peak period of Chinese oversea students studying in Western countries. The vast majority of those students returned to China afterwards, and the image of the US as a beacon of Truth and Freedom suffered its first blow.
The second blow came with the Urumqi riots of 2009, followed by the Kunming train station attack of 2014.
The Urumqi riots had the highest death toll of any violent attacks in recent Chinese memory. Hundreds of people, mainly of Han nationality, were killed in the attacks. However, Western media portrayed the riots as a crack down by the Chinese government on Uighur independence, largely ignoring the victims of this terrorist attack.
The Kunming train station attack happened less than a year before the Paris Charlie Hebdo attack. The Chinese people saw Western nations marching and mourning for the Parisian victims, and asked why those same nations who are always talking about Human Rights and Democracy had all but ignored the Kunming attack.
Those were the three major blows against the American image in Chinese minds. Afterwards, relatively minor incidents like the SCS disputes and the THAAD incident simply reinforced negative perceptions of the US.
Don’t people in China wish to live in a democratic country?
I live in Beijing. One day in the winter of 2022, I went out of home for shopping and found in the street adjacent to my community, there’s a pile of sand occupying the sidewalk. It seems to block the way and I had to step down the road shoulder to bypass it.
I called 12345, a kind of mayor’s hotline, and reported to the receptionist about what I witnessed. Then forgot the call.
The next day a man, who said he is the officer of the community committee, called me that they’ve solved what I complained to 12345 hotline. The pile of sand had been removed. He pleaded me to double-check when available and if everything is OKAY, don’t forget when 12345 is calling back to me for the result, pls tell them everything has been down on time.
At the afternoon, 12345 really called me back. I told them I have double-checked and the sands have been removed. The receptionist then asked me if I’m satisfied the result or not. Of course, I said YES. Nothing to complain more.
So I don’t know if this is a democracy or not? I’m just a average person. A citizen. Not a officer or powerful guy or rich guy or CCP member at all.
I don’t know how do you define the democracy. If it means all those old guys quarrelling in the parliament house, figting for the seats and elections, then No. in China it seems to lack of these sorts of things.
But if the democracy means that the suggestions from an average person could be respected and kindly treated, its reasonable parts will be accepted and improved, then Yes, I got it.
So let me back to the question: Don’t people in China wish to live in a democratic country?
Well, first of all, democracy is a good thing. But do I wish to live in a democratic country? It depends.
If I have the right to vote a leader and when I met some problems just like I met above-mentioned, I called him or hotline and he or they solve my problem very soon, OK, why not? I wish to live in.
If I have the right to vote a leader and when I met some problems just like I met above-mentioned, I called him or hotline and he or they would make an eloquent speech to me with expressive gestures but end up with doing nothing and the second day, that pile of sand still block my way then I called him again and again and each time I got a free eloquent speech but nothing improved, well, f**king the democrazy.
So in the daily routine of a normal person, democracy really didn’t have much to do with our lives. This is my opinion to your question.
What’s the democracy?
I happened to receive a girl(?) left her message to me. She swore me a livestock. Can livestock dial 12345 to complain lack of green grass? lol
I guess she may be a beautiful girl, judging from her profile photo so hopefully have some conversation with her. But unfortunately I couldn’t reach out to her because I found no REPLY button below.
And then I ask myself: why a girl maliciously swore somebody a livestock but didn’t dare to face his reply and she called this DEMOCRACY?
If this is democracy, why should I have to accept this providing it couldn’t solve my problem but noisy swear?
This is my opinion: every country has the democracy to some extent. But comparing to democracy, mutual RESPECT is most precious virtue.
Finally, the evil gene inside USA body has revived.
The gene, 500 years ago they were so thriving when they voyaged over the ocean and conquered the world & made the rest of people to be their slaves.
The gene, 150 years ago they called they’re civilized but barbarously intruded into China to sale the opium and cannonade the cities killing thousands of innocents.
Now, the evil gene is reviving.
Who could tell me where’s the so-called free trade?
If the free trade means when the rule is in your favor then you keep it but when it’s not good for you then you rob like your ancestors did to the world, how can you convince the world that your Democracy wouldn’t be like this?
Hypocrisy! Shamelessness!
300 years ago, when British Navy Force was navigating over the ocean, it always played one of two roles according to his power comparison to the opponents: if the opponent is strong enough, it will become a friendly offical embassador of British Queen to do business. But if the opponent is weak like a sheep, it will transform to ferocious pirates, catching the people to be slaves and looting their treasures. More importantly, this activities were secretly approved and supported by the British Monarchy.
300 years later, when they found they couldn’t compete with China in a fair way which the rules were created by themselves, they start to rob by the name of democracy. The same cases had happened for several times before. They trapped Alstom’s manager then they got Alstom finally. They trapped Samsung and got it. They trapped Japan and got it.
They’re evolving. Hundreds years before, they looted the world by the name of Christ. Now, they robbed the world by the name of Democracy.
Hypocrisy! Shamelessness!
Hi, I’m back. So surprised to see many comments.
This time I will tell a true story just happened in my cousin few week ago. Half years ago, she found her daughter(16 yrs) was bullied on internet. An anonymous guy continuously smeared a lot of bad words on her. Saying how ugly or stupid such stuffs.
Then my cousin and her husband consulted the lawyer. And the lawyer said they need to know firstly who is attacking their daughter and since this guy’s only slandering on internet therefore it should take long time and money for the legal process.
Then they turned to ask for help from Baidu, the huge internet giant just like google in western, where the anomymous bully posts his threads. But unbelievably, Baidu refused to neither disclose the bully’s information nor cancel the posts with the excuse of FREEDOM of EXPRESSION!
Dear readers, can you imagine in a communist country, the capitalist (Baidu) refused to stop the obvious violation to an innocent young girl with the excuse of FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION?
My cousin and her husband are all ordinary person so they don’t know how to deal with this when they come to ask my suggestion.
I suggest them to call 12345. Strongly asking 12345 to push Baidu to cancel those malicious posts otherwise ask for Baidu to provide the bully’s information for the legal preparing.
The couple doubted but agreed to follow my suggestion. One week later they told me happily that the problem has solved. Under the force of 12345,Baidu canceled all those bullshit posts.
Again, let’s return to the topic. What is the DEMOCRACY?
I don’t think that one man one vote is the democracy. The mediocre mobs could elect a freak who may bring the disaster to the world.
A democracy is not only a game to elect the top guys, but also a mechanism, a tool by which the ordinary person could connect with the government to listen and solve his problem.
Democracy should be driven by meritocracy, not plutocracy.
Democracy doesn’t mean FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, it means the mutual respect and tolerance among the different groups, ethnics, religions.
If these are democracy, then China is.