I grew up in a small town: East Brady, Pennsylvania.
Only 5000 people. Tiny.
But you know what? In the 1960’s we even had a small movie theater. Seriously. We really did.
Small town.
We had a bank. Here’s where I had my very first bank account. Heck, I used to go up and down that side ally throughout my boyhood. It used to be “Mellon Bank”, though today it no longer exists, and sold this building. I don’t know what it is today. Maybe an antique store….
And we had a pharmacy… It still exists.
And we had so much…
- Movie theater
- Local Diner
- Candy store
- Local hardware store
- Local garage
- Elementary and High School
- Library
Yeah. Here is the Library. It was combination church and library. It was the old “Captain Brady” mansion. Nice. It was just soen the street from my boyhood home.
As well as One or two restaurants (with attached bar)
Yeah. It was a real small town experience.
But yeah. We had a movie theater. And throughout the 1960’s my parents would fund me with a quarter to go watch a double feature matinee to keep me out of their hair for a spell.
It was a tiny enough place. Perhaps seated maybe 120 people. Just a single theater with 1960s era seating, and a curtained stage. The curtain actually moved out of the way when the movie started. (Unlike today.)
I watched the “Green Slime”, and saw Raquel Welch there on the big screen . So many classics.
It was a memory that is now long gone.
Around the middle of the 1970’s they stopped showing G rated movies and instead showed X-rated movies. As apparently there was better business doing that. And that pretty much breathed life into that theater for another decade into the 1980’s.
Sometimes I yearn to travel back in time, but I know better. I have occasionally visited the town. It was dying a slow, slow death.
Now pictures are of the survivors.
Relatives of my old classmates, milking out a living on the tough and scrabble wastes of what once was.
Today…
We start with a reminder…
What is the most disturbing message ever left on your voicemail?
I am a police officer’s wife.
I am used to late night calls when husband is at home and ‘I have to go back’ midnight leavetakings.
I do not dwell on what COULD happen to him, but I KNOW.
My phone vibrated while I was teaching. Since it was an unknown number, I let it go to voicemail.
When I lIstened to it after class, I began shaking and frantic fear tears filled my eyes. The translation from Thai:
“Wife of police officer Xxxxxxxx, there has been an accident. Call back immediately.”
An ambulance siren sounded in the background.
I could barely hold my phone; I was trembling badly. A man answered and identified me and my husband by name, using a serious, commanding tone. I could hear the siren again.
I asked what had happened and if my husband was o.k. Then there was the longest moment of silence I have ever experienced.
The siren sound stopped, and the man said, “Everything is fine, but it might not be that way in the future. You need more protection….more insurance in case something bad really DOES happen.”
This was a sales pitch???????
I wanted to scream, rant, cry with relief, hurt this caller, but I didn’t.
I quietly asked his name and the company he represented and said I would be in touch.
I wanted to call my husband, but he had more than enough to deal with at work.
I decided to handle this myself. Checking with a former student who also is an agent for the same company, I discovered that this was not a company-sponsored sales pitch.
I called the salesman back and asked if he had a family. He connected his ‘yes’ with a further sales pitch (which I ignored). A wife, 2 young children, his parents still living (more pitch).
Then I quietly asked what his wife’s and his mother’s responses would be if they received his voicemail. What would HIS response be if HE received it?
He went silent. So did I.
He apologized, and said he hadn’t really thought it through.
He was just one of many who never consider the effect of their ‘creative’ words or self-centered actions on others.
No, I didn’t buy the insurance.
Straight to Hell – Karl’s Disco Wiener Haven
A real classic!
Would you make your company aware if you saw that they accidentally added an extra two zeros onto one of your weekly paychecks, or keep it a secret?
Guy I worked with was in financial difficulties, so the company agreed to pay him weekly, instead of monthly, as was the norm.
1st week his wage slip showed a full month’s wages; he queried it and was told they were just bringing his wages up to date (which makes no sense but…).
2nd week his wage slip showed a full month’s wages, so he went to the accounts department in person with both the wages slips; again they told him it wasn’t an error.
3rd week his wage slip showed a full month’s wages, so he talked to his foreman, the foreman talked to the manager and they ALL went to the accounts department – who STILL claimed it wasn’t an error.
4th week, the company had him arrested for fraudulently getting a month’s wages every week.
At this point he had LOTS of evidence and paperwork showing he had tried to correct the problem, as well as several witnesses, and that got him off the hook; but if he had just accepted it and said nothing…
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7 thousand up votes, and currently gaining 1,000 per day(ish).
Did you know Quora keep bugging me to add a credential for this answer?
Because apparently, if I dont, not enough people will see it!!
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Do you want to know the reason the guy was in financial difficulties?
His car skidded on ice, spun out and flipped onto its roof, he kicked his way out via the rear window, and about 20–30 seconds later it basically exploded into a ball of fire.
The shit-hole company we worked for had lied about providing us with business insurance cover, for using our cars on company business, and so his insurance company refused to pay out for his car, and the damage done by the explosion to surrounding properties.
Kay & Co, part of Great Universal Stores, remember that name and never contemplate ever working for them.
Why YOU Should LEAVE the USA and Move to Asia NOW!
Does China illegally steal U.S. technology? If so, how?
I have heard such a joke:
The Chinese took a few glances at the F22 and F35 at the air show, and they successfully stole the technology and developed their own fifth-generation fighter.
The Russians sold the complete set of design drawings of the SU30 fighter to the Indians, and they have not been able to produce this 20-year-old fighter well so far.
Conclusion: Indians are honest and respect intellectual property rights, while Chinese are cunning and ready to steal
Later, at many Western air shows and important equipment exhibitions, Chinese audiences were refused to approach and forbidden to take pictures, while Indian audiences could touch and experience them at will.
THEY want to rule over us not only to destroy our civilization. Their shaming tactics + perversions.
Did German Tiger Tanks really need to start their engines every few hours? If so, why?
This is one of those vital logistics things that designers usually don’t think of, thinking the batteries would be enough for normal use. However, the crews of Tigers and just about all other tanks would run heaters, radio sets, etc. for hours and exhaust the batteries. Radio sets then were far different to the solid state sets nowadays, and involved many tubes that needed to be warmed up and kept warm. German forces had been taught to stay in communication, so those radio sets got used a lot.
Starting up the engine then not only used a lot of gas, but also made noise, which might carry a long way, especially at night in snowy terrain. Designers started adding small engines, called Little Joes or Tiny Tims, to tanks to retrofit this problem.
They were also often scratchy and unclear. This could have fatal consequences. My dad did not ride around in a tank, but in a command vehicle (pictured) with several radio sets to keep in touch with both his trucks (pictured) and nearby units that might need gasoline or other supplies on an urgent basis. He told me of a time he was late in supplying one of Rommel’s units in the 7th Panzer division as it approached the Atlantic shore of France. Rommel chewed him out. When he got a radio message to report to a French town two days later, he wondered at it, since it was 20 km. in front of the lines. But he wasn’t about to get chewed out by Rommel again, so he told his trucks to charge forward.
As they drove down the road he thought, “Man, our guys are really getting sloppy. These French soldiers marching to the back are still carrying rifles.” He later figured out that the only thing that saved him was that his trucks were so covered with mud they had no visible markings, and none of his guys wore the distinctive German helmets. He arrived at the town to discover no other forces there. Over the radio he discovered the first message had been wrong—they had mispronounced and misspelled the name of the town, which was over 20 km. to the East. Thinking quickly, he asked who was in charge, and met up with a French colonel. He told him the rest of his forces were right behind, and used the phrase (ironically) “You know that for you and me the war is over.”
To avoid bloodshed, he asked to park his vehicles somewhere safe. There was a football field nearby, so he pulled up his trucks in a circle and got the Colonel to post a few men at the entrance to make sure there were no “misunderstandings.” Dad had the gift of gab, and spoke French like a native. He loved France, had many friends there, and decades later took me on a tour of wineries. He told me that when he got to Paris, as others were proudly marching around to celebrate the victory, he instead prayed at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (pictured) for the many who had died (his handwriting reads “Here lies a soldier who died for his country.”)
Charging batteries with the engine is one of those things engineers often don’t think of while sitting behind desks instead of in the battlefield. Another one was track repair. My dad wondered why he had to supply so many tracks to Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division, to which he was attached as an officer in the Transportation Corps. Each tank had a few extra track segments. If one or two got damaged, the crew theoretically simply replaced them. In combat, however, when a track got hit or damaged, the driver would often jam the transmission into reverse and accelerate backwards to get to safety. This destroyed most of or even the entire track. Tracks on German WW2 tanks also got worn because they had no rubber, which was scarce.
So his trucks started carrying long sections of track, which had been unplanned, as well as extra tank batteries, wire and solder and flashlights (for nighttime repairs) and 88mm ammunition for the FLAK batteries that for Rommel were suddenly the only thing that could engage the thick-skinned British Matilda and other tanks.
There were of course no Tiger I tanks while he was in Rommel’s 7th, but later on he had the same challenges of rapidly changing conditions in the East. Because he was Transportation Command and not organic, he was attached to many units, from Leningrad all the way down to Stalingrad. Throughout, he and the Tiger commanders continued chattering on the radios, a lot, using up batteries. And from then on, he very carefully checked and re-checked over the radio the names of the towns he was supposed to drive to (!).
The Devil’s Advocate (1997) Deleted Scene #2
Have you ever had a job where you did nothing for years and nobody found out?
I worked as upper management for a tow-truck/transport company with an auto repair shop for years. Not that we needed “upper” management, but the owner was prone to extended vacations. Sometimes on vacations, sometimes in jail, and my word was law to the point that I was overruled maybe 5% of the time when he was there. Unlike some of the managers who’ve worked there, I didn’t want my name strewn all over everything, so I put all the accounts back in the owner’s name instead of my own, so only in rare occasion did anything actually show up in my name, so I was pretty much a ghost manager, which is about how it is for me today. Honestly, it was easier playing the owner than trying to explain where the owner was at the time than to just say I was him and be able to administrate whatever accounts I needed to.
When he was done with his troubles. I pointed out that while I was his friend, and now I’m a company manager, dispatcher, hirer & firer, and even a tow-truck driver, I was preparing to go into business in a technology related field.
I was asked never to leave, but I had to. My unofficial title was upheld for years. All my new job was, was simply to spend 10–15 hours a week looking at any of the truck logs I deemed suspicious, being on call for the owner and the 2 people needed to fill my job and I’d continuously get my direct deposit. I even worked in the office again for half a year when I was asked to check into money problems and theft and found both, firing the people I found responsible. Sadly none of them even denied it.
Since then whenever I was called upon, he always paid me for my time. I’d go months without ever logging in or checking any logs unless I was asked specifically to or if one of the drivers pissed me off. As of now, out of the 30+ employees I am known by 5–6 of them, and the rest have no idea until I pull in, drag them out of a truck, and send them home. It’s been at least a year since i showed up as anything but a customer on the auto repair side, but I still get the money in my account.
I do not buy Chinese products (unless disposable) because I know they will be low quality. Why does China only seem to make low end products? Why do they not mimic Germany where the standard is higher?
One of my partners is an Indonesian.
He doesn’t know Chinese very well, so he asked me to go with him to the China Canton Fair this year. He wanted to find some business. The final business was to negotiate with a factory in Zhejiang, and I served as an interpreter.
He wanted to purchase a batch of lighters, the most common type, with a plastic shell and disposable after use.
The price quoted by the Chinese was very reasonable. According to their quotation, each lighter was less than 0.2 US dollars. It can be sold to retailers in Indonesia at 0.5 US dollars each and still be profitable.
But my friend was not satisfied. He wanted to reduce the price to 8 cents each. The Chinese said that price was impossible, but of course they were still working hard to get the order.
My friend said: “My lighter is used for free gifts. It will be placed in birthday cakes as a tool for lighting candles. I need to keep the cost as low as possible.”
The Chinese representative contacted the factory engineer by phone. In the end, they gave a solution:
Replace a smaller shell. Use glue instead of a seal. The ignition of the lighter was replaced with a simpler flint, and the metal windshield was replaced with plastic. The flammable gas was replaced with a cheaper formula and the gas regulator was removed. The cost of the lighter was reduced to 8 cents each, but the Chinese told them that this lighter might only work 5 times and could not be stored for a long time.
In short, a reliable lighter became an industrial waste that could only be used a few times.
But the Indonesians were satisfied: working 5 times was enough because it was only used to light candles.
However, things were not that simple. A few months later, I found that the Indonesians put part of the inventory on TEMU and Amazon and sold it at $0.2.
I believe that people who bought these lighters will complain on various social platforms: “Made in China is garbage”, but they will not tell people that they only spent 20 cents to buy them.
“Victor Davis Hanson: Something Colossal is Happening in Europe…”
Hal Turner
Back in early August, the Hal Turner channel broadcast this…
Did it happen? Hum.
Southern Fried Catfish
Ingredients
- 6 small catfish
- 2 cups buttermilk
- 2 cups cornmeal
- Salt
- Ground pepper
Instructions
- Shake cornmeal, salt and ground pepper in a paper bag.
- Heat oil to 360 degrees F, halfway up the sides of a cast iron skillet.
- Dip catfish into buttermilk, then into dry mixture in bag.
- Fry for about 2 1/2 to 3 minutes on each side (5 minutes per every inch of thickness).
- Serve with Hush Puppies.
Contact – Decoded
As Boring as Martian Maize
Submitted into Contest #24 in response to: Write a story set in the dark recesses of space where the two main characters are often at odds with each other in humorous and comedic ways.… view prompt
Deborah Mercer
MY FIRST TIME IN CHINA!
The most important speech of the decade?
Viktor Orbán on how the war has revealed the reality of the world today
Jul 31, 2024
By Thomas Fazi
A long worthwhile read; I agree with 90% of what Orban says. I disagree with his putting hope for a U.S. revival on Trump and Vance winning. My opinion is that the U.S. cannot rebuild its industrial economy with its current form of government where state governments and Congress are strong, and the federal government is weak. The U.S. has to change to a different model with a strong federal government which can set economic policy without being vetoed by state governments and Congress. If the U.S. does not change to this model, it will shrink in power and economic influence on its own. The job of China and Russia is to let the U.S. continue to shrink while avoiding war with the U.S. This idea of a stronger federal government to drive re-industrialization runs exactly counter to what conservative Republicans who form the Trump base support. So this will not happen. This means that the U.S. will continue to grow weaker, and will continue trying to provoke war with China and Russia, because the U.S. government knows that it can expand its power much more in wartime than it can if the U.S. is at peace. World War 3 is the last hope for US power and influence. War is the only way the U.S. federal government can expand its powers and make state governments irrelevant. The greatest period of growth in the U.S. economy came in the twenty five years following the end of WW2. China, Russia and the rest of the world also know it. That is why they are building BRICS.
This past weekend saw the delivery of what can easily be described as the most important geopolitical speech of the decade — though you’re likely to have missed it if you tend to get your news from the Western mainstream media. The reason for the media silence is easy to explain: first, it was given by Viktor Orbán, the number one enemy of the European establishment; second, the speech itself — an analysis of the state of the world, and of the West and Europe in particular — is probably the most powerful takedown yet of the dominant Western geopolitical and cultural paradigm.
It’s a masterful talk, in which Orbán covers a wide range of topics: the war in Ukraine, Europe-US relations, the demise of Western hegemony and the southward and eastward global geopolitical shift underway, the importance of the nation state, the European Union (EU) as the quintessential example of the globalist and oligarchic shift in Western politics, Donald Trump, Hungary’s role in all this, and much more.
It’s a very long speech, which is why I’ve selected what I consider to be its most important takeaways (edited for clarity), focusing on the issues of European and global relevance rather than the ones more strictly related to Hungary. It still makes for a pretty long read, but one that’s definitely worth your time. I hope you’ll find it as enlightening and refreshing as I did.
Highlights from the lecture of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at the 33rd Bálványos Summer Free University and Student Camp, commonly known as the Tusványos Festival
On the Hungarian peace mission — and the EU’s pro-war policy:
[Brussels has] condemned the Hungarian peace mission efforts. I have tried — without success — to explain that there is such a thing as Christian duty. This means that if you see something bad in the world — especially something very bad — and you receive some instrument for its correction, then it is a Christian duty to take action, without undue contemplation or reflection. The Hungarian peace mission is about this duty. I would like to remind all of us that the EU has a founding treaty, which contains these exact words: “The Union’s aim is peace”. [Yet] Brussels is offended at our describing what they are doing as a pro-war policy.
Perhaps Orwell was right after all when he wrote that in “Newspeak” peace is war and war is peace. Despite all the criticism, let us remind ourselves that since the beginning of our peace mission the US and Russian war ministers have spoken to each other, the Swiss and Russian foreign ministers have held talks, President Zelenskyy has finally called President Trump, and the Ukrainian foreign minister has been to Beijing. So fermentation has begun, and we are slowly but surely moving from a pro-war European policy to a pro-peace policy. This is inevitable, because time is on the side of peace policy. Reality has dawned on the Ukrainians, and now it is up to the Europeans to come to their senses, before it is too late: “Trump ante portas”. If by then Europe does not switch to a policy of peace, then after Trump’s victory it will have to do so while admitting defeat, covered in shame, and admitting sole responsibility for its policy.
How the war has revealed the reality of the world today
But, ladies and gentlemen, the subject of today’s presentation is not peace. In fact, for those who are thinking about the future of the world, and of Hungarians within it, there are three big issues on the table today. The first is the war — or more precisely, an unexpected side-effect of the war. This is the fact that the war reveals the reality in which we live. This reality was not visible and could not be described earlier, but it has been illuminated by the blazing light of missiles fired in the war.
The second big issue on the table is what will happen after the war. Will a new world come into being, or will the old one continue? And if a new world is coming — and this is our third big issue — how should Hungary prepare for this new world?
So, about the reality revealed by the war. Dear friends, the war is our red pill. Think of the “Matrix” films. The hero is faced with a choice. He has two pills to choose from: if he swallows the blue pill, he can stay in the world of surface appearances; if he swallows the red pill, he can look into and descend into reality. The war is our red pill: it is what we have been given, it is what we must swallow. And now, armed with new experiences, we must talk about reality.
It is a cliché that war is the continuation of policy with other means. It is important to add that war is the continuation of policy from a different perspective. So war, in its relentlessness, takes us to a new position from which to see things, to a high vantage point. And from there it gives us a completely different — hitherto unknown — perspective. We find ourselves in new surroundings and in a new, rarefied force field. In this pure reality, ideologies lose their power; statistical sleights of hand lose their power; media distortions and politicians’ tactical dissimulation loses its power. There is no longer any relevance to widespread delusions — or even to conspiracy theories. What remains is the stark, brutal reality.
For the sake of clarity, I have made bullet points of everything we have seen since we swallowed the red pill: since the outbreak of the war in February 2022.
Why peace in Ukraine can only be brought in from the outside
Firstly, the war has seen brutal losses — numbering in the hundreds of thousands — suffered by both sides. I have recently met them, and I can say with certainty that they do not want to come to terms. Why is this? There are two reasons. The first is that each of them thinks that they can win, and wants to fight until victory. The second is that both are fuelled by their own real or perceived truth. The Ukrainians think that this is a Russian invasion, a violation of international law and territorial sovereignty, and they are in fact fighting a war of self-defence for their independence. The Russians think that there have been serious NATO military developments in Ukraine, Ukraine has been promised NATO membership, and they do not want to see NATO troops or NATO weapons on the Russian–Ukrainian border. So they say that Russia has the right to self-defence, and that in fact this war has been provoked. So everyone has some kind of truth, perceived or real, and will not give up fighting the war. This is a road leading directly to escalation; if it depends on these two sides, there will be no peace. Peace can only be brought in from outside.
Secondly: in years gone by we had got used to the United States declaring its main challenger or opponent to be China; yet now we see [the US] waging a proxy war against Russia. And China is constantly accused of covertly supporting Russia. If this is the case, then we need to answer the question of why it is sensible to corral two such large countries together into a hostile camp. This question has yet to be answered in any meaningful way.
Understanding the Ukrainian mindset
Thirdly: Ukraine’s strength, its resilience, has exceeded all expectations. After all, since 1991 eleven million people have left the country, it has been ruled by oligarchs, corruption sky-high, and the state had essentially ceased functioning. And yet now we are seeing unprecedentedly successful resistance from it. Despite the conditions described here, Ukraine is in fact a strong country. The question is what the source of this strength is. Apart from its military past and individuals’ personal heroism, there is something worth understanding here: Ukraine has found a higher purpose, it has discovered a new meaning to its existence. Because up until now, Ukraine saw itself as a buffer zone. To be a buffer zone is psychologically debilitating: there is a sense of helplessness, a feeling that one’s fate is not in one’s own hands. This is a consequence of such a doubly exposed position.
Now, however, there is the dawning prospect of belonging to the West. Ukraine’s new self-authored mission is to be the West’s eastern military frontier region. The meaning and importance of its existence has increased in its own eyes and in the eyes of the whole world. This has brought it into a state of activity and action, which we non-Ukrainians see as aggressive insistence — and there’s no denying that it is quite aggressive and insistent. It is in fact the Ukrainians’ demand for their higher purpose to be officially recognised internationally. This is what gives them the strength that makes them capable of unprecedented resistance.
The economic and political resilience of Russia
Fourthly: Russia is not what we have so far seen it to be, and Russia is not what we have so far been led to see it as. The country’s economic viability is outstanding. I remember being at European Council meetings — the prime ministers’ summits — when, with all sorts of gestures, Europe’s great leaders rather hubristically claimed that the sanctions against Russia and the exclusion of Russia from the so-called SWIFT system, the international financial clearing system, would bring Russia to its knees. They would bring the Russian economy to its knees, and through that the Russian political elite. As I watch events unfold, I am reminded of the wisdom of Mike Tyson, who once said that “Everyone has a plan, till they get punched in the mouth”. Because the reality is that the Russians have learned lessons from the sanctions imposed after the 2014 invasion of Crimea — and not only have they learned those lessons, but they have translated those lessons into action. They implemented the necessary IT and banking improvements.
So the Russian financial system is not collapsing. They have developed the ability to adapt, and after 2014 we fell victim to this, because we used to export a significant proportion of Hungarian food produce to Russia. We could not continue to do so because of the sanctions, the Russians modernised their agriculture, and today we are talking about one of the world’s largest food export markets; this is a country that used to have to rely on imports. So the way that Russia is described to us — as a rigid neo-Stalinist autocracy — is false. In fact we are talking about a country that displays technical and economic resilience — and perhaps also societal resilience, but we’ll see.
The hyper-vassalisation of Europe (and how the US blew up Nord Stream)
The fifth important new lesson from reality: European policy-making has collapsed. Europe has given up defending its own interests: all that Europe is doing today is unconditionally following the foreign policy line of the US Democrats — even at the cost of its own self-destruction. The sanctions we have imposed are damaging fundamental European interests: they are driving up energy prices and making the European economy uncompetitive.
We let the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline go unchallenged; Germany itself let an act of terrorism against its own property — which was obviously carried out under US direction — go unchallenged, and we are not saying a word about it, we are not investigating it, we do not want to clarify it, we do not want to raise it in a legal context. In the same way, we failed to do the right thing in the case of the phone tapping of Angela Merkel, which was carried out with the assistance of Denmark. So this is nothing but an act of submission.
The shift of the axis of power in Europe — from the West to the North-East
There is a context here which is complicated, but I will try to give you a necessarily simplified but comprehensive account of it. European policy-making has also collapsed since the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian war because the core of the European power system was the Paris–Berlin axis, which used to be inescapable: it was the core and it was the axis. Since the war broke out, a different centre and a different axis of power has been established. The Berlin–Paris axis no longer exists — or if it does, it has become irrelevant and liable to be bypassed. The new power centre and axis comprises London, Warsaw, Kiev/Kyiv, the Baltics and the Scandinavians.
When, to the astonishment of Hungarians, one sees the German chancellor announcing that he is only sending helmets to the war, and then a week later he announces that he is in fact sending weapons, do not think that the man has lost his mind. Then when the same German chancellor announces that there may be sanctions, but that they must not cover energy, and then two weeks later he himself is at the head of the sanctions policy, do not think that the man has lost his mind. On the contrary, he is very much in his right mind. He is well aware that the Americans and the liberal opinion-forming vehicles they influence — universities, think tanks, research institutes, the media — are using public opinion to punish Franco–German policy that is not in line with American interests. This is why we have the phenomenon that I have been talking about, and this is why we have the German chancellor’s idiosyncratic blunders.
Poland as an American bulwark in Europe
Changing the centre of power in Europe and bypassing the Franco–German axis is not a new idea — it has simply been made possible by the war. The idea existed before, in fact being an old Polish plan to solve the problem of Poland being squeezed between a huge German state and a huge Russian state, by making Poland the number one American base in Europe. I could describe it as inviting the Americans there, between the Germans and the Russians. Five per cent of Poland’s GDP is now devoted to military expenditure, and the Polish army is the second largest in Europe after the French — we are talking about hundreds of thousands of troops. This is an old plan, to weaken Russia and outpace Germany. At first sight, outpacing the Germans seems to be a fantasy idea. But if you look at the dynamics of the development of Germany and Central Europe, of Poland, it does not seem so impossible — especially if in the meantime Germany is dismantling its own world-class industry.
This strategy caused Poland to give up cooperation with the V4 [the Visegrád Group]. The V4 meant something different: the V4 means that we recognise that there is a strong Germany and there is a strong Russia, and — working with the Central European states — we create a third entity between the two. The Poles have backed out of this and, instead of the V4 strategy of accepting the Franco–German axis, they have embarked on the alternative strategy of eliminating the Franco–German axis.
The scale of this change — of bypassing the German–French axis — can truly be grasped by older people if they perhaps think back twenty years, when the Americans attacked Iraq and called on the European countries to join in. We, for example, joined in as a member of NATO. At the time Schröder, the then German chancellor, and Chirac, the then French president, were joined by President Putin of Russia at a joint press conference called in opposition to the Iraq war. At that time there was still an independent Franco–German logic when approaching European interests.
The peace mission is not just about seeking peace, but is also about urging Europe to finally pursue an independent policy.
The isolation of the West — and why the world is siding with Russia
Up until now the West has thought and behaved as if it sees itself as a reference point, a kind of benchmark for the world. It has provided the values that the world has had to accept — for example, liberal democracy or the green transition. But most of the world has noticed this, and in the last two years there has been a 180-degree turn. Once again the West has declared its expectation, its instruction, for the world to take a moral stand against Russia and for the West. In contrast, the reality has become that, step-by-step, everyone is siding with Russia. That China and North Korea are doing so is perhaps no surprise. That Iran is doing the same — given Iran’s history and its relationship with Russia — is somewhat surprising. But the fact that India, which the Western world calls the most populous democracy, is also on the side of the Russians is astonishing. That Turkey refuses to accept the West’s morally based demands, even though it is a NATO member, is truly surprising. And the fact that the Muslim world sees Russia not as an enemy but as a partner is completely unexpected.
The irrational behaviour of the West as the greatest threat to the world today
Seventhly: the war has exposed the fact that the biggest problem the world faces today is the weakness and disintegration of the West. Of course, this is not what the Western media says: in the West they claim that the world’s greatest danger and problem is Russia and the threat it represents. This is wrong! Russia is too large for its population, and it is also under hyper-rational leadership — indeed it is a country that has leadership. There is nothing mysterious about what it does: its actions follow logically from its interests, and are therefore understandable and predictable. On the other hand, the behaviour of the West — as may be clear from what I have said so far — is not understandable and not predictable. The West is not led, its behaviour is not rational, and it cannot deal with the situation that I described in my presentation here last year: the fact that two suns have appeared in the sky. This is the challenge to the West in the form of the rise of China and Asia. We should be able to deal with this, but we are not able to.
The following passage is particularly interesting as it seems to point to the inevitability of a break between Hungary — and Central European states more in general — and the “collective West”.
The importance of the nation state
Point eight. Arising from this, for us the real challenge is to once again try to understand the West in the light of the war. Because we Central Europeans see the West as irrational. But, dear friends, what if it is behaving logically, but we do not understand its logic? If it is logical in the way it thinks and acts, then we must ask why we do not understand it. And if we could find the answer to this question, we would also understand why Hungary regularly clashes with the Western countries of the European Union on geopolitical and foreign policy issues.
My answer is the following. Let us imagine that the worldview of us Central Europeans is based on nation states. Meanwhile the West thinks that nation states no longer exist; this is unimaginable to us, but all the same this is what it thinks. The coordinate system within which we Central Europeans think is therefore completely irrelevant. In our conception, the world is made up of nation states which exercise a domestic monopoly on the use of force, thereby creating a condition of general peace. In its relations with other states the nation state is sovereign — in other words, it has the capacity to independently determine its foreign and domestic policy. In our conception, the nation state is not a legal abstraction, not a legal construct: the nation state is rooted in a particular culture. It has a shared set of values, it has anthropological and historical depth. And from this emerge shared moral imperatives based on a joint consensus. This is what we think of as the nation state.
But in complete contrast Westerners believe that nation states no longer exist. They therefore deny the existence of a shared culture and a shared morality based on it. They have no shared morality.
This is why they think differently about migration. They think that migration is not a threat or a problem, but in fact a way of escaping from the ethnic homogeneity that is the basis of a nation. This is the essence of the progressive liberal internationalist conception of space. This is why they are oblivious to the absurdity — or they do not see it as absurd — that while in the eastern half of Europe hundreds of thousands of Christians are killing one another, in the west of Europe we are letting in hundreds of thousands of people from foreign civilisations. From our Central European point of view this is the definition of absurdity. This idea is not even conceived of in the West.
In parenthesis I note that the European states lost a total of some fifty-seven million indigenous Europeans in the First and Second World Wars. If they, their children and their grandchildren had lived, today Europe would not have any demographic problems. The European Union does not simply think in the way I am describing, but it declares it. If we read the European documents carefully, it is clear that the aim is to supersede the nation. It is true that they have a strange way of writing and saying this, stating that nation states must be superseded, while some small trace of them remains. But the point is that, after all, powers and sovereignty should be transferred from the nation states to Brussels. This is the logic behind every major measure. In their minds, the nation is a historical or transitional creation, born of the 18th and 19th centuries — and as it arrived, so may it depart. For them, the western half of Europe is already post-national. This is not only a politically different situation, but what I am trying to talk about here is that this is a new mental space. If you do not look at the world from the point of view of nation states, a completely different reality opens up before you. Herein lies the problem, the reason that the countries in the western and eastern halves of Europe do not understand one another, the reason we cannot pull together.
The demise of the collective in the West
Now, if we try to understand how this Western thinking — which for the sake of simplicity we should call “post-national” thinking and condition — came about, then we have to go back to the grand illusion of the 1960s. The grand illusion of the 1960s took two forms: the first was the sexual revolution, and the second was student rebellion. In fact, it was an expression of the belief that the individual would be freer and greater if he or she were freed from any kind of collective. More than sixty years later it has since become clear that, on the contrary, the individual can only become great through and in a community, that when alone he or she can never be free, but always lonely and doomed to be shrunken. In the West bonds have been successively discarded: the metaphysical bonds that are God; the national bonds that are the homeland; and family bonds.
Now that they have managed to get rid of all that, expecting the individual to become greater, they find that they feel a sense of emptiness. They have not become great, but have become small. For in the West they no longer desire either great ideals or great, inspiring shared goals.
The West as an “aggressive dwarf”
Here we must talk about the secret of greatness. What is the secret of greatness? The secret of greatness is to be able to serve something greater than yourself. To do this, you first have to acknowledge that in the world there is something or some things that are greater than you, and then you must dedicate yourself to serving those greater things. There are not many of these. You have your God, your country and your family. But if you do not do that, but instead you focus on your own greatness, thinking that you are smarter, more beautiful, more talented than most people, if you expend your energy on that, on communicating all that to others, then what you get is not greatness, but grandiosity. And this is why today, whenever we are in talks with Western Europeans, in every gesture we feel grandiosity instead of greatness. I have to say that a situation has developed that we can call emptiness, and the feeling of superfluity that goes with it gives rise to aggression. Hence the emergence of the “aggressive dwarf” as a new type of person.
To sum up, what I want to say to you is that when we talk about Central Europe and Western Europe, we are not talking about differences of opinion, but about two different worldviews, two mentalities, two instincts, and hence two different arguments. We have a nation state, which forces us towards strategic realism. They have post-nationalist dreams that are inert to national sovereignty, do not recognise national greatness, and have no shared national goals. This is the reality we have to face.
The EU as the quintessential example of late-stage Western “democracy”: elitist, globalist, oligarchic
And finally, the last element of reality is that this post-national condition that we see in the West has a serious — and I would say dramatic — political consequence that is convulsing democracy. Because within societies there is growing resistance to migration, to gender, to war and to globalism. And this creates the political problem of the elite and the people — of elitism and populism. This is the defining phenomenon of Western politics today. If you read the texts, you do not need to understand them, and they do not always make sense anyway; but if you read the words, the following are the expressions you will find most often. They indicate that the elites are condemning the people for drifting towards the right. The feelings and ideas of the people are labelled as xenophobia, homophobia and nationalism. In response, the people accuse the elite of not caring about what is important to them, but of sinking into some kind of deranged globalism.
Consequently the elites and the people cannot agree with each other on the question of cooperation. I could mention many countries. But if the people and the elites cannot agree on cooperation, how can this produce representative democracy? Because we have an elite that does not want to represent the people, and is proud of not wanting to represent them; and we have the people, who are not represented. In fact in the Western world we are faced with a situation in which the masses of people appearing with college degrees no longer form less than 10 percent of the population, but 30 to 40 percent. And because of their views these people do not respect those who are less educated — who are typically working people, people who live from their labour. For the elites, only the values of graduates are acceptable, only they are legitimate.
This is the viewpoint from which the results of the European Parliament elections can be understood. The European People’s Party garnered the votes of “plebeians” on the right who wanted change, then took those votes to the left and made a deal with the left-wing elites who have an interest in maintaining the status quo. This has consequences for the European Union. The consequence is that Brussels remains under the occupation of a liberal oligarchy. This oligarchy has it in its grip. This left-liberal elite is in fact organising a transatlantic elite: not European, but global; not based on the nation state, but federal; and not democratic, but oligarchic. This also has consequences for us, because in Brussels the “3 Ps” are back: “prohibited, permitted and promoted”. We belong to the prohibited category. The Patriots for Europe have therefore been prohibited from receiving any positions. We live in the world of the permitted political community. Meanwhile our domestic opponents — especially the newcomers to the European People’s Party — are in the strongly promoted category.
The world’s rejection of Western “values”
And perhaps one last, tenth point, is about how Western values — which were the essence of so-called “soft power” — have become a boomerang. It has turned out that these Western values, which were thought to be universal, are demonstratively unacceptable and rejected in ever more countries around the world. It has turned out that modernity, modern development, is not Western, or at least not exclusively Western — because China is modern, India is becoming increasingly modern, and the Arabs and Turks are modernising; and they are not becoming a modern world on the basis of Western values at all. And in the meantime Western soft power has been replaced by Russian soft power, because now the key to the propagation of Western values is LGBTQ. Anyone who does not accept this is now in the “backward” category as far as the Western world is concerned. I do not know if you have been watching, but I think it is remarkable that in the last six months pro-LGBTQ laws have been passed by countries such as Ukraine, Taiwan and Japan. But the world does not agree. Consequently, today Putin’s strongest tactical weapon is the Western imposition of LGBTQ and resistance to it, opposition to it. This has become Russia’s strongest international attraction; thus what used to be Western soft power has now been transformed into Russian soft power — like a boomerang.
All in all, ladies and gentlemen, I can say that the war has helped us to understand the real state of power in the world. It is a sign that in its mission the West has shot itself in the foot, and is therefore accelerating the changes that are transforming the world.
The end of the West’s 500-year-long hegemony — and why the future belongs to Asia
We are in a change, a change is coming, that has not been seen for five hundred years. This has not been apparent to us because in the last 150 years there have been great changes in and around us, but in these changes the dominant world power has always been in the West. And our starting point is that the changes we are seeing now are likely to follow this Western logic. By contrast, this is a new situation. In the past, change was Western: the Habsburgs rose and then fell; Spain was up, and it became the centre of power; it fell, and the English rose; the First World War finished off the monarchies; the British were replaced by the Americans as world leaders; then the Russo–American Cold War was won by the Americans. But all these developments remained within our Western logic. This is not the case now, however, and this is what we must face up to; because the Western world is not challenged from within the Western world, and so the logic of change has been disrupted.
What I am talking about, and what we are facing, is actually a global system change. And this is a process that is coming from Asia. To put it succinctly and primitively, for the next many decades — or perhaps centuries, because the previous world system was in place for five hundred years — the dominant centre of the world will be in Asia: China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and I could go on. They have already created their forms, their platforms, there is this BRICS formation in which they are already present. And there is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, in which these countries are building the new world economy. I think that this is an inevitable process, because Asia has the demographic advantage, it has the technological advantage in ever more areas, it has the capital advantage, and it is bringing its military power up to equilibrium with that of the West. Asia will have — or perhaps already has — the most money, the largest financial funds, the largest companies in the world, the best universities, the best research institutes, and the largest stock exchanges. It will have — or already has — the most advanced space research and the most advanced medical science. In addition, we in the West — even the Russians — have been well shepherded into this new entity that is taking shape.
[This process is] almost unstoppable and irreversible.
Donald Trump’s plan for America — a sensible reaction to the geopolitical shift underway?
President Trump is working on finding the American response to this situation. In fact, Donald Trump’s attempt is probably the last chance for the US to retain its world supremacy. We could say that four years is not enough, but if you look at who he has chosen as Vice President, a young and very strong man, if Donald Trump wins now, in four years his Vice President will run. He can serve two terms, and that will total twelve years. And in twelve years a national strategy can be implemented. I am convinced that many people think that if Donald Trump returns to the White House, the Americans will want to retain their world supremacy by maintaining their position in the world. I think that this is wrong. Of course, no one gives up positions of their own accord, but that will not be the most important goal.
On the contrary, the priority will be to rebuild and strengthen North America. This means not only the US, but also Canada and Mexico, because together they form an economic area. And America’s place in the world will be less important. You have to take what the President says seriously: “America First, everything here, everything will come home!”. This is why the capacity to raise capital from everywhere is being developed. We are already suffering as a result: the big European companies are not investing in Europe, but are investing in America, because the ability to attract capital seems to be on the horizon. They are going to squeeze the price of everything out of everyone. I do not know whether you have read what the President said. For example, they are not an insurance company, and if Taiwan wants security, it should pay. They will make us Europeans, NATO and China pay the price of security; and they will also achieve a trade balance with China through negotiations, and change it in favour of the US. They will trigger massive US infrastructure development, military research, and innovation. They will achieve — or perhaps have already achieved — energy self-sufficiency and raw material self-sufficiency; and finally they will improve ideologically, giving up on the export of democracy. America First. The export of democracy is at an end. This is the essence of the experiment America is conducting in response to the situation described here.
What should Europe’s response to the global geopolitical shift be?
What is the European response to global system change? We have two options. The first is what we call “the open-air museum”. This is what we have now. We are moving towards it. Europe, absorbed by the US, will be left in an underdeveloped role. It will be a continent that the world marvels at, but one which no longer has within it the dynamic for development. The second option, announced by President Macron, is strategic autonomy. In other words, we must enter the competition of global system change. After all, this is what the US does, according to its own logic. And we are indeed talking about 400 million people. It is possible to recreate Europe’s capacity to attract capital, and it is possible to bring capital back from America. It is possible to make major infrastructure developments, especially in Central Europe — the Budapest–Bucharest TGV and the Warsaw–Budapest TGV, to mention what we are involved in. We need a European military alliance with a strong European defence industry, research and innovation. We need European energy self-sufficiency, which will not be possible without nuclear energy. And after the war we need a new reconciliation with Russia. This means that the European Union must surrender its ambitions as a political project, the Union must strengthen itself as an economic project, and the Union must create itself as a defence project.
In both cases — the open-air museum or if we join the competition — what will happen is that we must be prepared for the fact that Ukraine will not be a member of NATO or the European Union, because we Europeans do not have enough money for that. Ukraine will return to the position of a buffer state. If it is lucky, this will come with international security guarantees, which will be enshrined in a US–Russia agreement, in which we Europeans may be able to participate. The Polish experiment will fail, because they do not have the resources: they will have to return to Central Europe and the V4. So let us wait for the Polish brothers and sisters to return.
The following passage is only very interesting: even though Orbán here is outlining a “grand strategy” for Hungary, it potentially offers a broad blueprint — at least in some if not all aspects — for all countries willing to achieve “strategic autonomy” in the new geopolitical context.
The opportunities offered by the current geopolitical shift
All in all, therefore, I can say that the boundary conditions exist for independent nationally-oriented policy towards America, Asia and Europe. These will define the limits of our room for manoeuvre. This space is wide — wider than it has been at any time in the last five hundred years. The next question is what we need to do to use this space to our advantage. If there is a global system change, then we need a strategy that is worthy of it.
So the essence of the grand strategy for Hungary… is connectivity. This means that we will not allow ourselves to be locked into only one of either of the two emerging hemispheres in the world economy. The world economy will not be exclusively Western or Eastern. We have to be in both, in the Western and in the Eastern. This will come with consequences. The first. We will not get involved in the war against the East. We will not join in the formation of a technological bloc opposing the East, and we will not join in the formation of a trade bloc opposing the East. We are gathering friends and partners, not economic or ideological enemies. We are not taking the intellectually much easier path of latching on to someone, but we are going our own way. This is difficult — but then there is a reason that politics is described as an art.
The second chapter in the grand strategy is about spiritual foundations. At the core of this is the defence of sovereignty. I have already said enough about foreign policy, but this strategy also describes the economic basis of national sovereignty. In recent years we have been building a pyramid. At the top of it are the “national champions”. Below them are the internationally competitive medium-sized companies, below which are companies producing for the domestic market. At the bottom are small companies and sole traders. This is the Hungarian economy that can provide the basis for sovereignty. We have national champions in banking, energy, food, the production of basic agricultural goods, IT, telecommunications, media, civil engineering, building construction, real estate development, pharmaceuticals, defence, logistics, and — to some extent, through the universities — knowledge industries. And these are our national champions. They are not just champions at home, but they are all out there in the international arena and they have proven themselves competitive.
Below these come our medium-sized companies. I would like to inform you that today Hungary has fifteen thousand medium-sized companies that are internationally active and competitive. When we came to power in 2010, the number was three thousand. Today we have fifteen thousand. And of course we need to broaden the base of small enterprises and sole traders. If by 2025 we can draw up a peace budget and not a war budget, we will launch an extensive programme for small and medium-sized enterprises. The economic basis for sovereignty also means that we must strengthen our financial independence. We need to bring our debt down not to 50 or 60 per cent, but close to 30 per cent; and we need to emerge as a regional creditor. Today we are already making attempts to do this, and Hungary is providing state loans to friendly countries in our region that are in some way important to Hungary.
It is important that, according to the strategy, we must remain a production hub: we must not switch to a service-oriented economy. The service sector is important, but we must retain the character of Hungary as a production hub, because only in this way can there be full employment in the domestic labour market. We must not repeat the West’s mistake of using guest workers to do certain production work, because over there members of host populations already consider certain types of work to be beneath them. If this were to happen in Hungary, it would induce a process of social dissolution that would be difficult to halt. And, for the defence of sovereignty, this chapter also includes the building of university and innovation centres.
The third chapter identifies the body of the grand strategy: the Hungarian society that we are talking about. If we are to be winners, this Hungarian society must be solid and resilient. It must have a solid and resilient social structure. The first prerequisite for this is halting demographic decline. We started well, but now we have stalled. A new impetus is needed. By 2035 Hungary must be demographically self-sustaining. There can be no question of population decline being compensated for by migration. The Western experience is that if there are more guests than hosts, then home is no longer home. This is a risk that must not be taken. Therefore, if after the end of the war we can draw up a peace budget, then to regain the momentum of demographic improvement the tax credit for families with children will probably need to be doubled in 2025 — in two steps not one, but within one year.
“Sluice gates” must control the inflow from Western Europe of those who want to live in a Christian national country. The number of such people will continue to grow. Nothing will be automatic, and we will be selective. Up until now they have been selective, but now we are the ones who will be selective. For society to be stable and resilient it must be based on a middle-class: families must have their own wealth and financial independence. Full employment must be preserved, and the key to this will be to maintain the current relationship between work and the Roma population. There will be work, and you cannot live without work. This is the deal and this is the essence of what is on offer.
And finally there is the crucial element of sovereignty. This is the essence of the protection of sovereignty, which is the protection of national distinctiveness. This is not assimilation, not integration, not blending in, but the maintenance of our own particular national character. This is the cultural basis of the defence of sovereignty: language preservation, and avoiding a state of “zero religion”. Zero religion is a state in which faith has long disappeared, but there has also been the loss of the capacity for Christian tradition to provide us with cultural and moral rules of behaviour that govern our relationship to work, money, family, sexual relations, and the order of priorities in how we relate to one another. This is what Westerners have lost.
You may read Orbán’s full speech here.
Our new FAVOURITE city in China..
Why is Kanthaswamy Balasubramaniam against reservations? I understand the idea of a meritocracy but don’t we also need to provide justice to oppressed castes who have been unfairly treated for several hundred years?
Look
I believe every system has to DELIVER RESULTS
Results alone decide whether a system is a success or a failure
The Chinese System today rose from an Agrarian Nation struggling with poverty to one of the biggest and most powerful nations on the planet with a near $20 Trillion economy
This means their system is a ROARING SUCCESS
India as it stands once Chinas equal has a 1/6 Per Capita Income, 1/9th Industrial Production and 16% of the Skilled Labor and 1/200th of the Infrastructure Or planning but 5 times more corruption and a lot more inequality
This means our system is a HUMONGOUS FAILURE
Plain and Simple
- Two Nations
- Similar Background of Colonial Exploitation
- No Huge Stash of Oil Or Gas
- Same Illiterate People, Primarily Farmers
- Loads of Poor People
One becomes a major force to reckon with
Other is struggling on its way to the middle
I don’t give a rats ass about anything else
In the same way
Chinese Students have near Top Mensa scores
Chinese Graduates lead all forms of Scientific Research today
Chinese Engineers have worked on Marvels across the world
So their system (Meritocracy) is a ROARING SUCCESS as far as I am concerned
It has delivered results
The Indian Students on a Median Level have nothing on the level of the Chinese
Indian Graduates are at best glorified managers of big enterprises founded by Westerners or have toilet cleaning startups that have Zero Technological Innovation or Edge
Indian Engineers – no need to say much
So our System is a HUMONGOUS FAILURE as far as I am concerned
This System means – Low Quality Government Schools, Free Rein to Private Schools, Exploitation of Students and Reservations – all of these
Plain and Simple
- Two Nations
- Same level of literacy or illiteracy
- Same struggle to expand on primary education
One is so dominant that they terrify the West who have been world leaders for over three or four centuries
Another producing factory drones and talented casual leave sanctioning munims
So everything India is doing is flawed according to me
Simple
Now either it’s because the Chinese are genetically superior in which case it’s perfectly fine to say “This is our maximum limit. Doing little and generating 99% Gas”
Ambika Vijay and our friend Dr Karan Shanmugham have presented some valid points over the last few months or year to say this theory is unlikely
So the only explanation is :-
Our System is flawed in every sense possible
This includes Reservations
I am not for Meritocracy because of the equality notion nor am I against Reservations because it is unjust
I simply say Meritocracy has proven a roaring success while Reservations has achieved virtually nothing for India in 35 years
So this means either the concept of Reservations is wrong in itself or the Implementation of Reservations is wrong
As to Justice to Oppressed Castes
Again China sets an example here to it’s minorities (Uyghurs, Hui, Hill Tribes, Tibetans, Lhasans, Pinglis)
- Fully Free Education upto University Graduation
- Stipends to students every month from Grade III to University
- 51% Guaranteed Resource sharing
- First Preference Farming Contracts
- 66% Guaranteed Local Contracts or Undertaken Contracts
Yet all of them need ABILITY to qualify for anything
Won’t these help the oppressed communities far better than keeping them as beggars and dangling reservations???
It’s why Xinjiang generates it’s revenue plus contributes to China while Tibet too has a net outward contribution
Yet
Kashmir has Zip
Most Poor Districts with Dalit Majority or Oppressed Majority have ZERO outward contribution to a State
So as usual India is doing something very wrong
Why?
It hasn’t worked or produced any results so far to indicate otherwise
So it’s time to overhaul everything because India is One Gigantic Failure especially since 1975–2024 barring a 10 year period from 2000–2010 & a 4 year period from 1992–1996
Is that being done?
- Our Legal system is replaced by a More Draconian system
- Leaders are stupider as time goes by
- We are digging down on our failure system instead of looking for flaws and overhauling
So the biggest question is
WHAT THE F*** ARE WE ACTUALLY DOING?
The Media Will Never Tell You What’s REALLY Happening in China
Why were North Vietnamese soldiers so feared by American soldiers during the Vietnam War?
I do not know that is the fact or not but I do know one thing : should stay away from them, period. During the VN War, those nva you bumped into battlefields of South Vietnam were survivors of all challenges before they met you. The weak, the sick all died along the HCM Trails by bombings, sickness…Behind every single nva soldier, he had nothing to lose ( no fancy cars, big house and good living back home ) In fact, behind him there could be a piece of farm land, poor. His village and his folks got bombings from US planes. Put aside all political propaganda, these factors alone could propel him to the point he really wanted to trade life and death with you. He didn’t trek thousand miles in tough terrains to fight you with his bare ass. He got his ak47, hand grenades and all kinds of trainings. He also knew that no man is tougher than a bullet. Why would he be afraid if he is willing to put his life away for a good cause ? That is why no matter what nationality you are Chinese Japanese, French, American, Korean, Australian, Cambodian, Thai…HE WILL NOT HESITATE TO CONFRONT YOU WITH ALL OF WHATEVER HE GOT. Share ( an ex-nva of Cambodia battlefields, late 70s )
Have you ever discovered a friend secretly hiding from you that he is actually rich? How did you find out?
Originally Answered: Have you ever discovered a friend secretly hiding from you that he is actually rich? how did you find out?
Yes actually! Going anonymous.
I have a very good friend who used to drive a very very old second hand car. I always teased him why he didn’t bought a new reasonable car like me, cause I thought he was a middle class guy who can afford a normal car instead of buying refurbished cars. Also, he used to never tip waiters and would always search cheaper options of everything. I would always poke him and make fun of him for being a cheapskate, of course in a friendly way so he never would mind.
Now on the part when I found out. I started a business and was in very needed of investment. It was a big idea so I needed every help I could get. I already had received help from 5 of my friends, which was seemingly enough to start the venture along with my money. When my cheapskate friend knew about my idea (I never told him myself), he came to me and said he would like to invest in my venture as he loved the idea. Then he offered me an amount which was almost double the combined investment of 5 others! No words will be enough to describe how shocked and surprised I was.
I knew there is difference between how the rich thinks and most of us do. But I never totally understood it until I had this experience.
What Putin and China Just Did to the U.S. Military is SHOCKING, Pentagon on Red Alert
What terrifies you about Xi Jinping?
“Terrify” is too strong a word; I prefer the word “concerned”.
Xi Jinping is a very smart person, and there are stories how he was determined from a very early age to become China’s leader. He had a plan.
He worked his way up, and eventually became party general secretary, chairman of the Central Military Commission, and President of China. He is not attracted by wealth and money, and is not distracted by women and sex.
These are all good virtues for the leader of a country to have, because it shows that he is able to think of the overall good of the nation, and its citizens when making decisions. He does not think of personal benefit, which is important.
He has also surrounded himself with very intelligent advisors, notably Wang Qishan.
My concern is that while he has understood how to work the system in China to get where he is, he has much more difficulty getting inside the heads of non-Chinese societies and non-Chinese leaders.
This means that he can make good decisions for China and Chinese, but he has a much harder time understanding the needs and concerns of other nations. But, at a time when China now has the world’s second largest economy, this becomes cause for worry because China is now a superpower. The leader of China cannot only think of what is good for China; he has to think of the problems other nations are having.
This explains my disappointment at China’s current over-reliance on Chinese nationalism to support China’s claims to the South China Sea. While I can understand eventually exercising claims to this territory, I really don’t understand why these claims were exercised beginning in 2013? If China was going to make a peaceful rise, why frighten its SE Asian neighbors so soon, and then militarizing these islands, giving the US a pretext to engage?
Was this really necessary? Was this done just to impress Chinese that China was now a global power, and the period of shame was over? What has been accomplished?
If this was the idea, I think that it was done too soon, and then Xi was caught off-guard by the election of Trump, and then caught off-guard again when Trump appointed Lighthizer and Navarro, both of whom were hostile to Chinese expansionism.
Doesn’t this make other countries look at China and say “All this talk of China’s peaceful rise was a sham, they just want to gobble us up?”
This is not just a PR and media problem, it is a challenge for policy formulation.
China got caught off-guard because many domestic reforms were delayed for too long. Now, if it makes reforms under US pressure, it looks weak, as if it were bowing to US pressure, which is not good for Xi and the leadership.
Deng Xiaoping said that the best strategy for China was to keep a low profile; I continue to believe that is the best formula for China because it does not yet offer a framework which other nations can buy into. “Non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs” is not a framework for an inter-connected world, because technology has gone way past that.
This is because China’s foreign policy now is too purely transactional, and has not yet expanded beyond that. When is it going to expand beyond only being transactional? The one bright spot in foreign relations is Xi’s relationship with President Putin; they seem to genuinely get along and like each other.
Why wasn’t this kind of relationship developed with the leadership of western nations, before everything blew up recently?
The United States was a flawed leader, but it offered a framework which worked for a long time. It won the Cold War against the Soviet Union, but it lost the peace because it turned inward and became selfish. It thought that it could only remain strong if other challengers, like China, were beaten down. Other countries lost respect for its leadership.
So far, China does not offer anything better.
Shorpy
From another source…
For your information, Sunday there was a demonstration for peace in Amsterdam. Suddenly ''we'' were confronted with AZOV demonstrators. The AFVN wrote an article about it, it is in Dutch, I translated it with deepl translate. Hope it is clear enough what happened. Sunday 28 July saw the monthly demonstration of Platform for Peace and Solidarity. What happened on that day that we can interpret as a low point, there was ‘suddenly’ a demonstration on Dam Square by the AZOV battalion.* AZOV is a fascist organisation in Ukraine and responsible for much death and destruction. During WW2, they committed many crimes against dissenters, against people of different backgrounds based on colour. Ukrainian fascists openly stood on Dam Square with flags of AZOV and openly scanned slogans for the release of AZOV, for supporting these fascists. With outright lies naming Russia as the aggressor, that Russia would be a terrorist state and hatred against Russians. This while the aggression comes from the US/Ukraine with many bombing civilian casualties. It is not for nothing that most refugees are in Russia.Russia intervened militarily after many attempts to negotiate and conclude peace agreements. So this did not come out of the blue and Russia's action was by no means unprovoked, quite the contrary. It is a shame that it has come to this, that fascists can openly demonstrate in front of the National Monument that symbolises the victims in the fight against fascism 1940- 1945. We as AFVN have not experienced that for a long time that fascists are allowed to openly propagate their ideology on public roads with impunity. It is certainly due to the Western media in which fascism in Ukraine is systematically trivialised and denied. So they are certainly partly responsible for the legitimacy of fascism. Why didn't the police intervene? How could this have come to this? We cannot let this go unpunished and want to call on everyone who is against fascism to take action. We want to call on everyone reading this message to spread it as much as possible, people need to know. We must call on politicians and administrations to distance themselves from Ukrainian fascism in the Netherlands, the law prohibits overt fascism and signs. We call on all members of parliament to have parliamentary questions asked about this. And we should fire the city council, asking whether fascism is tolerated in the city of the February Strike. In the coat of arms of the municipality of Amsterdam, heroic, determined and merciful is written as a tribute to the February Strike 1941.
US/EU privately admit they lost Ukraine proxy war w/Levan Gudadze
Why do Chinese people think that China is better than the USA?
Both China and the U.S. have their own strengths and weaknesses. My responses will focus more on the aspects of China that I find commendable.
Strict Drug Control
I strongly agree with this. China does have a drug problem, but with years of strict crackdowns, it has been better controlled now.
I remember getting lost in a minority area in Beijing around 1999 or 1998, walking into a small alley, and finding many discarded needles on the ground. It was quite unsettling at the time. Another instance was across from the rental house I was staying in, where a middle-aged man committed suicide because his son couldn’t quit heroin.
Breaking Bad is my favorite American TV show, but what Mr. White does is certainly not commendable! By the way, the U.S. has much better freedom of creation. Shows like Breaking Bad would never pass the censorship in China. This results in very few worthwhile Chinese TV dramas, which I hardly watch because they seem immature and uninteresting.
I know a narcotics officer who said they are like a firewall, sacrificing themselves to protect ordinary people like me who are pure and innocent. He said narcotics officers encounter the most vile things in the world.
I’ve seen some videos about the plight of American drug addicts, wandering the streets and losing their ability to work, which is very sad.
Strict Gun Control
It’s extremely strict, to the point of being unreasonable. For example, if I remember correctly, air guns have been banned since after 2000. If I were American, I would definitely buy a gun because it seems fun. But that’s not possible in China.
There are pros and cons to this.
Most people still support strict gun control. If I remember correctly, countries like Japan and the UK also have strict gun control?
I heard that the U.S. bans the sale of bulletproof vests, while in China, you can buy them freely.
China doesn’t ban bows and arrows; you can buy and play with them freely. In fact, the destructive power of a bow and arrow is not less than that of a handgun, which I don’t understand why it’s allowed.
Refusal of Immigration……
In fact, all East Asian countries refuse immigration, including Japan and South Korea. However, it seems that Japan is not particularly opposed to high-skilled Chinese immigrants. I have two friends who have immigrated to Japan.
China is similar. For instance, North Korean defectors—China has accepted far more than all other countries combined, including South Korea.
But there hasn’t been much public or official reaction, and they gradually receive citizenship. They go to school and work as usual.
However, there was a lot of opposition online when Rohingya refugees entered China from Myanmar, around only 30,000 in total.
The general sentiment was: accept them humanitarianly but do not accept them as immigrants. But for the same Myanmar people, if they are from Kokang (essentially Han Chinese), there is no opposition,even though they are also a minority group suppressed by the Burmese military junta.
Today (2024.08.01), the Kokang army captured a major city, and they have a population of 1.12 million under their control.
Chinese people are very familiar with this.
Today is the PLA Army Building Anniversary, and they deliberately chose today to attack the Northeast Command. This is called “paying tribute”.
You see, their way of thinking is just pure Chinese!
Even if all of them were to integrate into China, I wouldn’t feel much difference. They all speak Chinese, use Chinese currency, and telecom services, and copy China’s way of life, including television stations and news broadcasts.
( Kokang’KKTV)
(China CCTV)
If Vietnamese or Laotians were to immigrate to China, I personally wouldn’t object.
This topic is a bit sensitive and politically incorrect to discuss further, but I think you understand my point. Almost all Chinese people share my attitude. The last Rohingya incident saw a female actress advocating for their acceptance, and she was heavily criticized to the point of shutting down her social media accounts. The general opinion was to put those thousands of people in her home.
I don’t mean to be racist, not at all. However, if hundreds of thousands of people of Chinese or Confucian cultural sphere enter China, and local security hasn’t significantly deteriorated (there are indeed crime records, such as defectors worried about being reported, or cases of murder and assault simply for food, but overall, the crime rate is very low), whereas another group’s entry results in frequent incidents of armed robbery, severe injury, and even rape—crimes that are now quite rare in China—shouldn’t I, as a taxpayer, question whether my tax money might be better spent on something like keeping a dog?
Why is that?
Other benefits include a strong emphasis on education, high medical standards with low costs, and so on. But the most important points are the ones mentioned above.
OUT OF BUSINESS! ALL 553 STORES ARE CLOSING!
Grapefruit
Submitted into Contest #24 in response to: Write a story set in the dark recesses of space where the two main characters are often at odds with each other in humorous and comedic ways.… view prompt
Sierra Tkacik
Stuffed Flounder
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients
- 6 (1/2 pound) flounder
- 2 medium onions, chopped
- 3 ribs celery, chopped
- 1 small bell pepper, chopped
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 3 teaspoons lemon juice
- 1 1/2 cups seasoned bread crumbs
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- Dash of Tabasco sauce
- Dash of cayenne pepper
- 1 pound lump crabmeat
- 1 (8 ounce) can shrimp
- Butter (to baste)
Instructions
- Cut flounder down the middle. Take knife and cut around inside under skin to make a pocket on each side of the slit.
- Sauté onions, celery and bell pepper until tender.
- Mix eggs, lemon juice and bread crumbs. Add salt, pepper, Tabasco and cayenne.
- Check crabmeat for shells and add.
- Drain shrimp and add.
- Stuff flounder with crab and shrimp mixture.
- Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees F, basting with butter. Watch carefully. Do not overcook.
“We need young MEN to Rise Up Right Now” Globalists are TERRIFIED
What does it feel like to refuse orders from a military superior on ethical grounds?
In 1975 I was assigned to the 1/19th Infantry Battalion, 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks, HI. Although I was an Infantryman (11B MOS) I was detached from my line unit to Battalion HQ as I had another Secondary MOS in Administration (71L).
Under Army Regulations, when someone left for a Leave it was necessary to sign out on the approved Leave form prior to departure. On weekends or other after duty times the forms were sent to the Battalion HQ where the NCO assigned as Charge-of-Quarters managed the sign-out process.
One young Private reported to HQ to sign out but the CQ did not find his approved leave in the file. This was not entirely unusual and, as the CQ knew that a leave had been approved by the young man’s Unit Commander, he let him go saying they’d take care of the paperwork when he returned from leave. Tragically he died in an accident while on leave.
As one of my regular tasks at Battalion included preparing the Duty Status Report, and as it was especially necessary in this case before the soldier’s family was notified of the death – and before they received Death Benefits – I noted his status as “Present for Duty to Approved Leave to Deceased” and sent this to the soldier’s Company Commander for his signature. While waiting for the form to be signed and returned I also began preparations for the letter that was going to be signed by the Battalion Commander and sent to his family.
Instead of signing the form the Company Commander came to Battalion and informed me that this man did not have an approved leave because he did not sign out as required. He further told me that though the man had requested the leave he, as the CO, never approved it. Accordingly, he instructed me to change my status report to “Present for Duty to AWOL to Deceased” which would have resulted in the soldier’s family receiving nothing and being informed that their son was in violation of Army Regulations at the time of his death. I was totally shocked as I knew this was untrue, and I informed the Captain of that fact and that I refused to change my Report.
In anger, the Captain ordered me to accompany him to the Battalion Commander’s office to answer for my “insubordination” and face whatever penalty the Colonel deemed appropriate. I did so and explained to the Colonel what had actually happened, that the man’s First Sergeant would verify that the Leave had in fact been approved by the Captain, and that the man’s name was still on the Company HQ’s Duty Status Board noting that he was on Leave, something the 1SG would not had done unless he had personally seen the approved form. The Colonel seemed to side with me and I was dismissed to continue preparing my report and the notification letter. At the same time the 1SG looked into the Company Commander’s waste basket – and found the leave form, signed by him, and then crumpled up and thrown out. He brought the form to Battalion and gave this to the Colonel. While he and I waited outside the office we could hear the Colonel speaking to the Captain in anger but, after a while, he came out of his office, looked at us, and then stated that while the form had in fact been approved the young man still violated regulations by leaving without signing out as required. I was then ordered – again – to change my report noting that this Private died while AWOL.
Now I was the angry one and, although just a Junior NCO (3-striper at the time), I gave the Colonel a “one finger salute” and went back to my office and slammed the door, ignoring the Colonel’s order to stop.
When the Colonel – and most of his Battalion Officers – came into my office I was ready for them, although I thought I could still end up in Leavenworth. Before the Colonel could say a word I laid out on my desk a stack of Leave Forms that, since I was responsible for Duty Status Reports, had been sent to me for filing. As I went through them I sorted out a number that had not been “properly” handled.
“This form is for the Commander of Company C. He is currently on Leave but has not signed out as required by Regulations. I will prepare the AWOL Report on him, Sir. This one is for the First Sergeant of the Combat Support Company. He is currently on leave also but has not signed out. I will report him as AWOL, Sir, as required.” Altogether I found perhaps a dozen others that were technically AWOL to include one of the Colonel’s Staff Officers.
The Colonel looked at me, realized how serious I was, and then turned to his officers and said, “How did you people let me get into this mess?” He then turned to me and said, “Sergeant Keith, prepare your report and the letter, noting that this young man was on approved leave at the time of his death.” I responded by saying, “Yes, Sir. Already done.” He then ordered the Captain to return to his office with him where, I expect, the Captain was reamed a new one.
A few months later the Colonel – a Lieutenant Colonel actually – was promoted to Full Colonel and reassigned to Division HQ. When I had occasion to go to Division HQ I tried to avoid running into him as I still thought I was on the sh-t list with him but one day I did run into him and he told me to come into his office and close the door. This is what he said: “Sergeant Keith, although you might have handled that situation better, you were right and I was wrong. I apologize.”
My respect for this man has never left me to this day.
Has anyone ever taken a DNA test and found something completely shocking?
I was 17 years old. I was taken to court for a paternity suit from my ex-girlfriend. She claimed I was the father of her child. Her and I were very sexually active using the withdrawal method for birth control. Ultimately, I plead no contest and started paying child support monthly. I supported the girl for 19 years with no visitation rights. Certain times were hard and the mother also took me to court to have the support payments increased by 300%. Again, I was ordered by the judge to pay the increase as my income increased. Fast forward to the the present day. The girl now with a daughter of her own messaged me and says, “I look at photos of your children and I don’t see any resemblance to me. I would like to pay to have a DNA test done. Would you agree to this?” I had nothing to lose so I agreed. We get the results back and it was determined I was NOT her father. Her and I went through so many emotions. Anger, relief, sadness and more. I have messaged the mother with no reply. I feel bad for the daughter as now she never knew her biological father and probably never will. I have no recourse to collect the support payments as there is no statute in Canada. I will just live with the fact I helped support a child that turned out good.