We are just a group of retired spooks that discuss things that you’ll not find anywhere else. It makes us unique. Take a look around. Learn a thing or two.
At that time in my life, I worked three jobs. I worked in the coal mines, and a grocery store, and I was also a volunteer forest fire fighter. Many times we would ride down an old railroad spur to get to the fires in the forests.
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And I hung out with different groups of friends
One, my old buddy Clyde, (a classmate) worked at the local gas station. he drove a GTO like mine. An orange GTO, just like mine.
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We would “do” white cross and enjoy “hanging out”. Back then, “white cross” was a little white pill used to curb appetite so that people could lose weight. we took four of them and got a very nice “high” from it.
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Oh, many a car I would gas up for fun. We would jam the radio in the station and just “hang out”. Chatting and “bullshitting”. Many a sunny September was spent in that “Indian Summer” air together.
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Then, there were the brothers; P Eck and J Eck. I talked about them in those days they would hang out on their front porch. They both had bicycles and they would always be busy fixing them and adjusting them. J Eck drove a black Chevy truck. Kind of beaten up, fun fun to do our cruising. Don’t you know.
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Oh, so many more… now that I think about it, heck, I must of had maybe ten or more groups of various friends that I would hang out with. Oh, too many to list here. So… consider this just an introductory sampler.
My buddy Robbie didn’t come upon the scene until much later; during my college days. But here we are talking about my High School days. And they were glorious, as all of my readership can attest to. We all have different experiences, but those days were special.
What a time!
Do you feel like I do?
Today…
MEET !! China’s New large Unmanned Submarine Drones, to carry and launch missiles
People who’ve been to prison for a long time and got released, what was it like seeing all of the things that have changed?
I was in prison for 25 years (1988 – 2013) so I missed the technology boom. Funny story: When I got out I went to live with some friends of mine (Gary and Karen) for about 9 months. They live sort of on the far outskirts of town, and my first day out, after going out for a HUGE breakfast, I was sitting out on their deck, smelling the wood furnace, listening to the birds, smoking a cigar, and feeling GREAT!!! Karen came out and said their youngest son called and wanted to talk to me. So I walk in, hear “hi Uncle Jim”, see his face on the computer screen, and say, “what the hell is this, Star Trek?”
Story of stupidity: (not mine) Throughout my life I had lost my driver’s license a couple of times due to tickets and had to re-take my test. I had lost it again for the same reason shortly before getting arrested, so with that, combined with the DMV having my paperwork and thus knowing I hadn’t driven in the past 25 years, I just knew when Karen took me there on my second day out I was going to be told I would again have to re-take my test. But nope!!!! I paid the money, they took my picture, and handed me my license and said I was clear to drive. I asked “now, as in today?” and the woman told me “Yes”. WOW!!
However, I think the answer you’re looking for is scary. On my third day she took me to Walmart to get things I needed, and that big of an open area, combined with that many people, combined with THAT MANY CHOICES after “shopping” from a commissary list all those years had me so overwhelmed that after maybe 20 minutes I grabbed her arm and said “take me home, NOW!!!”
The adjustment for me was very hard, and actually took several years, but I’ve been out for just over 6 1/2 years now and am doing well, but I still get a bit overwhelmed when shopping for dress clothes.
Do you support the idea of an all-out war with China to permanently divide their country as Germany was briefly divided in 1945?
I guess with that idiotic arrogant cruel entitled mindset that you are referring to the USA.
The USA has just has its ass whipped again by a bunch of poorly armed, unsophisticated peasants in Afghanistan, as happened in Viet Nam and Korea. How and why it assumes that a truly cruel vile evil proposition like this could succeed against a highly organised, sophisticated, vast, nuclear armed country like China is beyond the scope of rational thinking.
Combine garlic salt, chili powder, pepper and cinnamon. Use your fingers to press mixture onto both sides of each steak portion.
In a large skillet cook steaks in hot oil over medium heat to desired doneness, turning once. Allow 8 to 11 minutes for medium rare or 12 to 14 minutes for medium.
Transfer steaks to a serving platter, reserving drippings in the skillet. Keep warm.
For sauce, add white onion, leek and shallots to skillet. Cook and stir over low heat for 5 minutes or until onions are tender.
Add beef broth and Worcestershire sauce. Cook and stir for 1 to 2 minutes more or until broth is slightly reduced.
Add scallions. Spoon onion mixture over steaks.
Garnish with scallion pieces, if desired.
Kishore Mahbubani REVEALS China’s Strategy to Counter the US
How much do the most extreme alcoholics drink?
Betty, an aunt of mine, born in New York in 1931, began drinking in earnest in 1945, around the time she began high school. Although her mother was an alcoholic—several cocktails a day, seven times a week—Betty quickly overtook her.
By the early 1950s, she was married with three children. Her husband was a conventional, sober, hard-working sort, and my aunt absolutely detested marriage and family life. In later years, she ascribed these feelings to some kind of inchoate feminist awareness. In truth, however, she resented family life because it interfered with her drinking, which had become an established habit long before she ever met her husband or had children. One day in the late 1950s, she simply walked out on her whole family.
Betty was by no means stupid. She was a quick study, and a talented artist. Over the years, she eked out a living as a part-time art teacher, as well as by sponging off her mother and other relatives as much as she could get away with. After a second failed marriage, she met her third husband, a confirmed boozehound who had deserted his family.
After marrying this fellow, my aunt dedicated the remainder of her life to nothing except getting soused every single day. Every morning at their Palm Springs condo, the two of them typically mixed a pitcher of martinis (very dry, i.e., they waved the bottle of vermouth over the pitcher), and by early afternoon they were usually on their second. Once, I came by to visit. It was 2:00 p.m. and Betty was already three sheets to the wind. My mother told me that she and my dad once took Betty and the boozehound to dinner at a modest steak restaurant. The bill came to about $450—this was nearly forty years ago, mind—of which less than $70 was for food!
In late 2002, my aunt was diagnosed with some kind of liver trouble and received the customary admonition to cut out drinking. Doing so, of course, was impossible for her. She died about nine months later, at 72.
Neither I nor anyone else in the family has any recollection of Betty in any state other than stinking drunk. It is no exaggeration to say that my aunt had spent nary a single day sober since 1945.
Does a human being know they’re dead once they die?
I absolutely did. On January 21, 2023, I crashed from complications due to Delta Covid. Prior to being revived, I have vivid memories of knowing I was dead. I will tell you that I went somewhere horrific, and disconnected from all that is holy. I heard those closest to me say things like “at least she’s in a better place now”, as I’d dealt with decades of severe mental health issues and suicidal ideations. I heard them walk away for what I believed to be the very last time. I was in a dark room beneath the ICU, tied down in a chair. There was an evil presence, and other details I won’t go into now. My voice was mute. My screams, silent. I have never felt such agony as knowing that was the last I’d ever hear them, and I had no voice to scream, “COME BACK!! I’M NOT IN A BETTER PLACE!! PLEASE DEAR GOD DON’T LEAVE ME!!!” The belief that I had went to hell, and my loved ones assumed I was in Heaven was the worst part of it all. Knowing I was there, and no one knew. Forever. That it would never end. I cannot even begin to put into words the agony and torment, as I can assure you that there is nothing on this earth that can even come close to comparing to that horror. I read once about a woman who was held captive for many years on end by a man and woman who kept her in a box beneath their bed. For whatever reason, I can relate this most to her story, only at least she could hold onto the tiniest amount of hope that perhaps someday she’d know freedom. But where I went, even the tiniest of hope did not exist. Thankfully both her and I recieved that freedom. I woke up a different person. In the 18 months since my NDE, I have found God and am no longer suicidal. I had a laundry list of complications brought on by Delta Covid, including Sepsis, Septic Shock, Staff, MRSA, Double Pneumonia, and failed liver and kidneys. I was in a coma for several weeks and was on bedside dialysis. I woke up unaware of where I was or what had happened to get me there. I have no memories of being sick, and even the couple of weeks leading up to being life-flighted are wiped clean. At first, I assumed I must’ve been in a car accident. I had a tracheostomy and could not communicate in the weeks following waking from the coma. My body was too weak and shaky to use a pen, as we tried without anywhere close to success. I was determined to get off the vent so that I could tell of what had happened when I died. I can’t explain how odd it was to be holding onto that alone, while my loved ones visited my bedside and I had no way of telling them that I had been changed. I had seen hell. I was given a second chance, against all odds. I had a total of 17 specialists, many informing my family (and myself) that they witnessed nothing short of a miracle. My body was described as “on fire”. I had a preconceived notion that doctors were purely science-minded, but my doctors gave all the credit to God and my will to live. The odd thing was that I’d just gotten out of 7 months of in-patient treatment for wanting to end my life, so hearing it had ANYTHING to do with my will to live was such dark humor!! It was God, as He worked through the hands of my doctors. I came out of it realizing that both science and God can be true at the same time. God works through others. Next time I die, I plan on going to Heaven.
[Content warning: mild physical violence, death]Apocalypses don’t happen in sudden, drama-injected catastrophes like in the movies. They happen slowly—painstakingly—while half of the planet tries to convince the other half that it’s all a hoax, that the sun can’t possibly go out, that it’s just a government plot to drive up stock prices or hide trackers in our drinking water or whatever the conspiracy theory of the day is.The sun might not have technically ‘gone out’ yet, but it’s close. Each morning grows that much darker. Kids don’t even know what seasons are anymore.I always thought that if there was an apocalypse, if the zombies did rise up and eat us all, I wouldn’t want to survive the first wave. What kind of person would want to stick around for a zombie apocalypse and spend the rest of their miserable life alone and perpetually afraid of their own shadow?Well, now I know the answer. It turns out that the human brain has an incredibly strong desire to stay alive, regardless of the circumstances. Sure, I know the sun is dying. I know the world will freeze even more than it already has done and it will only be a matter of time before we slow to a crawl and die gruesome deaths. But my brain hasn’t quite cottoned on to that yet, so it forcibly keeps me alive. It’s determined to score front row seats for the end of humanity.And if I am going to stick around . . . well I’m going to make the best of it.It was clear from the outset that even at the end of the world, humans love to place value on random commodities, even if the commodity might not seem like much on first glance. Plants, for one thing—real, natural plants—soon became the treasures of corporations once they realised that they would be a rare phenomenon, destined to be locked away and auctioned off to the wealthy just to satiate their need to find new ways to prove their meaningless fortunes.But apparently plants don’t just sit there and look pretty. The black market seems to think that their DNA is a vault of information and the promise of scientific advancement—if you know how to unlock it. At least, that’s what my buyer told me. And now, that plant DNA is priceless to those heroes who are still trying to save what’s left of the planet.Who am I to argue with the experts?It’s time to wake up and smell the apocalypse. What billionaire ex-politician is going to care about a missing plant when they’re going to die just as horribly as the rest of us ordinary folk? I wasn’t always a thief, but as the doomsday clock ticks down lower and lower, the less I can find the ability to care about the morality of it all.I got into this business for the money at first, but when the concept of money and cash stopped meaning anything, I kept doing it anyway as if to prove a point—that no amount of high security fences or vaults or sirens would be enough to protect them from the same fate as us. Everyone else around here knows that their homes are viable targets for looting; why should it be any different for them? With each score, I dragged them back down to the reality of living on this broken planet.This one is no different. The thrill is addictive, cutting up fences and shooting down cameras as though they would be an effective deterrent for any thief worth their salt. I’m a machine of instinct and adrenaline. I slip through lasers and bypass security barriers like a river in a gorge. On a planet full of death, I feel like I’m the only human left who is truly alive.The first security guard catches me by surprise, but my survival-bent brain reacts before he can. Complacency gets thieves killed, and gut instinct brings the gun from my holster and shoots the security guard before he can do anything to stop me.I wasn’t planning to encounter anyone today, let alone commit murder. I should be flattered that this target perceives thieves like me as such a threat that they would go to such ridiculous expenses as hiring security personnel—very much a dying breed in an apocalypse—but all I can think as I continue through the dark compound is how little value is placed on the lives of these people. I reason with myself that if these security guards wanted to stick around this long for the apocalypse, that was their choice. Actually, if you think about it, I was saving them from having to experience the final apocalypse—that by shooting them in the head, I was performing a kindness.I’m not very persuasive, as it turns out. I send up an apologetic prayer as I propel each guard I encounter to somewhere better than here.A new train of thought keeps me focused as I continue my executions through the dimly lit corridors. If God is real, and all this is just another Biblical flood, and some guy called Noah has built a spaceship to rebuild humanity after the sun finally dies . . . well, I wish Noah success in his spaceship-building endeavours. But I also feel for the people who weren’t saved from the flood and who won’t be saved now, those who have sinned and will feel God’s wrath as a result. Who is Noah to decide who lives and dies? Doesn’t watching the rest of humanity die and doing nothing to save them constitute a sin in itself? If Noah is as damned a sinner as I am, then I will sin until the bitter end, and if God made us in Their image, then They too must be a sinner.Therefore, God would want me to steal this bloody plant.
I wasn’t born a thief. Believe it or not, I used to be a Pilates instructor before the world went to pot. We always knew that the sun would die in our lifetime, so I’m not sure what got us to the point where people stopped caring about personal fitness and the rule of law. All I know is that with every governmental collapse, with every frozen, deadly winter, with every suicidal cult that sprung up and promised a pre-apocalyptic death free of pain, the world felt that much smaller, and consequences became a rarer occurrence. Each winter inches us closer to a world-ending ice age, and when it’s the end of the world, concepts like ‘morals’ are the first to go. So I’m just here to make the most of it. It’s either that or sit around and wait to die. You might have your sainthood intact if you chose that route, but you’d also die a lot quicker from starvation or hypothermia if you never stole anything. It starts with a blanket, a bread roll, something you can trade for a hot meal, and then before you know it, you’re sneaking around a former world leader’s private compound on a murder spree so you can sell his prized potted plant on the black market.
As thoughts of morality and the road from sainthood to sinner spiral around my mind, I finally arrive at the vault, where the plant awaits rescue. I shove on a pair of sunglasses. They’re hard to come by these days—what use would a dark planet have for darkening the world even more?—but I know that real plants need a great deal of artificial light to keep them alive, so I came prepared. This might be my first plant heist, but I don’t intend for it to be my last.
I blast open the iron doors of the vault without much difficulty, alarm sirens blaring in the darkness. Dust spills into the air from the explosion, and I am thrust into the whitest light I have ever seen. Fortunately, the sunglasses do their job, and I see three silhouettes racing towards me, boots clanging on the metal floor.
I reach for my gun, but another guard tackles me from behind and wrestles me to the floor. He must have followed me, chosen not to engage, knowing I would be facing further resistance within the vault itself and would not be expecting anyone to attack from behind. I usually manage to avoid physical altercations, but desperation spurs me to fight back. That damned survival instinct kicking in again.
He might be bigger than me, but I know the weak points of the body. An elbow to the eye shatters his sunglasses and causes him to pull his arm back to cover his face, providing me with the space needed to roll out from under his grip, save him from the apocalypse with my gun, and face my three remaining opponents.
I have a second to take in my surroundings. The vault is enormous, more like a chamber, and it is filled to the ceiling with deep green plants. The blueprints didn’t indicate the size of the vault or its contents, but I couldn’t have imagined stumbling into a veritable rainforest. It’s been years since I’ve even seen a picture of a real plant, and this guy has a whole ecosystem hidden away in his basement. And for what? Status? Pride? Just because he can? Within milliseconds, anger and despair consume me. The apocalypse isn’t just the sun going out, the oceans freezing over, and the descent of everlasting darkness—it’s people like him, hoarding extortionate amounts of wealth just so he can go to meet God with as much superficial power as humanly possible. Has no one told him that we don’t take material possessions with us when we die? Stealing to survive and drag the wealthy back down to earth is one thing. But hoarding this? This is far beyond any concept of survival. This is greed in its purest, most meaningless form.
The heroes operating within the black market would keel over at the sight of all these plants, and probably declare that humanity finally has a shot at salvation. I’m not so sure that humanity is even worth saving at this point.
Maybe I’m starting to understand Noah’s perspective.
The instinct to survive kicks in again, and I shoot at the guards despite myself, but my gun clicks, jammed.
Divine intervention?
I dive out of the guards’ firing range and get close enough to engage in physical combat instead, but I am a thief, not a fighter. I have completed countless jobs, but none of them involved a physical fight with more than one person at a time. Like I said, security guards are a dying breed, so physical confrontations are few and far between.
I manage to thrust the butt of my gun into a guard’s head, kick another in the groin, hurl my fists into the other’s lower back, continuously moving so they don’t have enough time to aim and shoot me. I take more blows in return than I can count. Blood—I’m not sure whose—sprays onto a nearby leaf. Then, one of them manages to reach for my sunglasses and rips them off before I realise what’s happening.
My eyes scrunch shut without any control at the sudden injection of light, and the guards waste no time at my hesitation. One twists my arms behind my back and kicks me to the floor, a boot pressing against my lower spine to keep me there. My shoulder sockets burn at the strained angle.
I inch my eyes open millimetre by millimetre until I can see a guard with his gun pointing straight at me. The remaining guard stands further back, speaking indistinctly into a radio.
The guard in front of me takes his final aim, and somehow I smile to myself, panting, blood dripping from my mouth. Finally, that damned survival instinct subsides. My brain has finally stopped resisting, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more at peace than I am in this moment.
It looks like I’ll miss the apocalypse after all. I almost think I was actually looking forward to it in the end, just to see what it would feel like after all these years of build-up. Typical of me not to want to feel like I’m missing out. Maybe that’s what’s kept me alive through it all.
I chuckle and crane my neck up to the ceiling, towards the Great Sinner, finally ready for my appointment with Them.
Ex-Husband’s Afterlife Confessions to Matt Fraser!
Which famous person in history who is idolized, was actually a horrible person?
This is a great question. I have a perfect answer for this
This Son of a Bitch, Woodrow Wilson:
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I am honestly baffled that anyone would put this piece of shit in their top 10 favorite presidents. Some historians rank him as the best behind FDR, Lincoln and Washington. There were so many bad things he did and it would be an essay in order to list down EVERY bad thing he did. So where do we start with this Bastard
-He segregated the Government
-He Brought new live into the KKK, ultimately setting Civil Rights back another 50 FUCKING YEARS!
-He promised to keep the United States Out of the Great War, Only to Declare War. Him saying he would keep us out of war was the reason why he won the 1916 election.
-He passed out the Sedition Act of 1918 Which Banned Freedom Of Speech
-He passed out the Espionage Act of 1917 which prohibited people from obtaining information from the National Defense
-He supported eugenics
-He forced many soldiers to fight in WWI with Influenza and was responsible for the death of millions
-He was involved in the Treaty of Versailles which lead to Hitler and WWII
-He smiled when Theodore Roosevelt died. That’s disgusting
-He lead the Palmer Raids
I’m sure there’s much worse about this asshole but I could still keep typing until the day I die when I list every bad thing from Woodrow Wilson. If I ever had an excuse to ever go to hell, It would be to knock his rotten teeth out of his mouth. I hate him with a passion and sorry If I seem so unprofessional about this but He really did that much bad for us Americans. And what’s also the point in liking Woodrow Wilson when FDR was similar in polices but unquestionably better than him in ever since of the word better.
What’s the most badass thing your boss has ever done?
There was a time when I was working a maximum security prison. This was the top of the line for inmates just shy of death row. We held a lot of people sentenced to multiple life sentences, fifty years and more.
A trick inmates like to play was to feign a medical injury then when staff opened their cell, said inmate would jump up and start fighting.
I had one inmate on my block and he was gargantuan, easily six foot five and three hundred pounds. Had he wanted to he could have incapacitated me by just knocking me down and sitting on my chest for three minutes. He looked like Fezzik from Princess Bride.
I knew that he was being interrogated for serial killings linked to him by the FBI. If they could crack him a couple life sentences would be added to his twenty year stretch. He had nothing to lose.
To add insult to injury, life threw him a curveball. His mother died and he was locked up, unable to see her. When I heard this I was convinced he would at the minimum attempt a suicide.
My prediction seemed to come true when I heard another inmate in the neighboring cell calling my name. I walked over and he pointed towards Fezzik whose cell was next to his. I shone my flashlight in and he was lying on the ground motionless.
Following policy I called in an emergency alert to the unit. We were short staffed, so short staffed that two sergeants came by to help. I was starting to think that Fezzik had snapped and the second we rolled his door that we would be in a clobbering match with a man three times my body size. All I had was some pepper spray and a vest.
We rolled his door and there was a massive pause as we all looked around to see who the unlucky bastard to go into the cell first would be. I will admit that bastard was not going to be me.
A small sergeant, a man called Sgt. Click didn’t hesitate, not even beyond one second. He was shorter than me and had no gear but he went head first into the cell, towing what I imagined to be basketball sized steel testicles in his pants. Fortunately for us, Fezzik was not looking for a fight. He had taken his frustration out on the cell wall, slipped and knocked himself out cold on the cell floor.
We got him out and to the hospital wing. I had nothing but the highest respect for Sgt Click after that.
Pot Roast with Vegetables
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Ingredients
Roast
1 (5 pound) bottom round beef roast
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon shortening
6 whole black peppers
1 bay leaf
6 medium carrots, pared
6 medium onions, peeled
1 (16 ounce) can stewed tomatoes
Pot Roast Gravy
Pan drippings
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
Salt and pepper
Instructions
Roast
Wipe roast well with damp paper towels.
Combine flour and salt; rub into surface of meat. In hot shortening in large Dutch oven, brown meat well all over.
Add black peppers, bay leaf and 2 cups water; simmer covered, for 1 hour.
Turn roast. Add vegetables; simmer covered, for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until the roast and vegetables are tender. Keep warm.
Serve with Pot Roast Gravy.
Pot Roast Gravy
Pot Roast Gravy: Brown flour in pan drippings in skillet; when brown add water to liquid in pot roast to make 2 1/2 cups. Cook slowly until thick, season to taste.
Serve with meat.
Man HIT by CAR & DIES; Shown Humanity’s FUTURE in PROFOUND NDE – Stay Calm! | Gary L. Wimmer
An alarm was going off. I awoke with a start as I sat up in my bed. The alarm was coming from a small box on the stool beside me. I reached over and turned it off and took a look at my surroundings. I was in a small room that was chromatic in appearance and seemed spotlessly clean. There were no windows and no door to be seen. Aside from the stool next to my bed which held the alarm clock, the only other things in this room were a mirror, and a calendar hung on the wall. I stood up out of bed and stretched. I looked in the mirror, then moved along the walls of my small enclosure and was able to confirm that there in fact was seemingly no way in or out of this room; so how did I end up in here? I was so hungry and so thirsty, so I ate dates from the calendar and drank from the springs of my bed.I turned to again face the mirror on the wall. There I see what I saw, and I took the saw. I then moved the alarm clock off the stool and sawed the stool in half. I took both halves of the stool and put them together to make a whole. I climbed through the hole.On the other side of the hole is where I found a door. It was large and, like most everything else I found so far, was made of metal. I tried the handle of the door but it didn’t budge. There was a panel above the handle which displayed a rectangular screen and a keypad. The screen showed a long list of number pairs where the far left side of the pairs was quickly counting higher with the seconds, but the numbers moved slower and slower as my eyes moved to the right of the screen. There were letters underneath each pair of numbers, which read, “S, M, H, D, W, M, _” with a blank spot at the end. I looked at the keypad and pressed “Y,” and the door gently swung open before me. I stepped through the doorway and entered a much larger room. On the wall, there was a wide oval-shaped window. I peered outside and gasped in surprise – I was looking at the planet Earth as it levitated so peacefully in the vast openness of space. I saw a plaque above the window which read, “The eyes of the world are upon you.”I looked back out the window from the plaque and saw that instead of the earth as it was before, I was now looking at one large human eye in a sea of black staring back at me. I looked back up at the plaque, and this had changed too. It now reads, “I am the first in the world, but not in a word.”“One,” I say allowed.As I said this, another alarm goes off. Everything around me turns red, and I realize that the airlock is about to open and send me defenseless into the vacuum of space. I frantically search my surroundings for a way to escape, and that is when I look up and see a space suit hanging on the ceiling. I tried jumping forward to reach it, but I felt like I weighed a ton; though backward, I was not. I took a step back and became weightless. I floated to the ceiling and put the suit on just in time before I was sucked into the openness of space. There I drifted through the endless without name, or number, or sound. I have become the beginning of the end and the end of time and space. I am essential to creation, and I surround every place. There I learned that my name is E.A voice crackled in my space suit, saying, “Find the eighty-seventh planet,” so I looked out among the stars and saw that they shone in the patterns of another sequence of numbers. I saw 16, 06, 68, 88, and 98. Before long, I realized that I had been floating upside down, so I drifted in between 88 and 98. There I found the eighty-seventh planet and descended.As I landed on the surface, I found a building that I recognized, though I could not remember from where. I wanted to get into this building but was held up by two doors – both of which had a guard in front of it. I approached the guard on the left and asked him, “Which door will the other one tell me leads safely inside?” I chose the opposite door for the answer given to me.I woke up again. Now I am surrounded by people I recognize, and I remember what that building was that I entered in that dream – it was where I work.My boss is leaning over me. “Colonel, how do you feel?”I slowly sit up, rubbing my head as I do so. “I… Okay, I think. What happened?”“It will take you some time to recover fully – Colonel, you just underwent a simulation of sorts. Do you remember why you’re here?”I thought about this for a moment. I shook my head. My boss explained, “The simulation you experienced had a very unique kind of programming. You were to be placed alone in a space station, but that’s where the specifics stop – the rest of the program was up to your own imagination to piece together.”It was all starting to come back to me. “I’m… I’m going to go up there, aren’t I? And it’s going to just be me up there.”My boss nodded, saying, “That’s right. This simulation was to see how well your mental state can handle being in a situation like that for such a period of time. Judging by your readings of this test…” he sighed, then continued, “They’re very interesting. Not concerning in any way, just … Interesting. So we think you’re ready, but the question is – do you feel ready, Colonel?”I leaned back again onto the bed, a smile spread slowly across my face. Though my eyes were looking at the ceiling, my thoughts were somewhere else entirely. I was reminded of Neil Armstrong’s first words on the moon as I said out loud, more to myself than to anyone else around, “I’m ready. After all, the more I take, the more I leave behind.”
She Came Home At 5 am and Forgot to Delete the Messages
When have you cheaply or inexpensively fixed an item someone thought unrepairable?
Many times I have been called upon to repair something others had deemed unfixable. It’s sort of my niche as a repair person—come to me when everybody else failed and before you give up and trash it to the landfill. I noticed years back a flurry of assorted repair trucks at a neighbors home. I was surprised as their home was just built a few years prior. What could be so wrong that Roto Rooter was there, then a plumbing company, then an appliance repair place van. I ran into the neighbor at a school function and asked her what had gone wrong. she just about burst into tears and told me the dishwasher had an error code indicating a drain problem. She had RR come out and snake the sink drain but the problem was not fixed. The RR guy said the dishwasher drain hose might be clogged but a plumber would have to replace the hose or clear it. The plumber said he couldn’t figure out how to remove the dishwasher from the cabinet to get to the hose so he ran a wire in it from the sink drain and it seemed clear so the problem was in the dishwasher. She was out $500 at that point. The appliance guy came out and said there was nothing he could do as the dishwasher wouldn’t come out of the cabinet. Then she was out $650 (service call fee). I offered to have a look and found indeed the dishwasher would not slide out of the cabinets despite removing the usual mounting screws. I asked her to remove all the food from the lazy Susan cabinet and she did. I crawled in to the Lazy Susan (I was slender enough then) with a light and mirror. I discovered the rear legs of the dishwasher had been screwed to the floor by the dishwasher installer before the cabinets were all finished and the countertops were put on. Either that installer was stupid or he figured the countertop guys would remove the screws before placing the countertop and that guy was also stupid. The end result was a dishwasher there for life and not repairable or replaceable. I ran home for special tools like a flexible screwdriver drive for the drill and a right angle screwdriver attachment. One of those was able to get back in there and remove the floor screws without removing the countertops, the sink, the disposal, and the cabinets. I slid out the dishwasher. I gave her the option of calling back the appliance repair guy or me giving it a shot. she chose me based on experience she had so far (and I was free). I started pulling the dishwasher apart after reading the manual that there was a drain obstruction detected. She asked where I learned to fix dishwashers. I told her it was actually my first time. She looked worried. I found a one way check valve in the drain line that the rubber flap had torn loose and jammed in the hose. That was the obstruction detected. I told her a new check valve was needed so I would order one for her. She asked how long it would take and I had no idea. I asked for a needle and thread-waterproof thread. She had the needle but no waterproof thread. I ran home for fishing line. I sewed the rubber flap back in position as best I could and it worked fine, the code cleared, and the dishwasher was back in business. The new valve arrived in a week and I installed it telling her she should expect it to happen again in about 3 years as the water has additives that destroys black rubber. Before then they sold the house and moved away apparently fearing the 3 contractor visit if I wasn’t around the next time perhaps.
Have you been accused of shoplifting and proved your innocence? Did the store employees apologize? Do you feel an apology is owed in this situation?
I did, once LONG ago. Being legally blind, I often travel with a folding white cane. Actually, now I use an National Federation of the Blind telescoping cane,) that, when folded, looked like a bundle of four white tubes.
I was shopping in a toy store, just looking around, minding my own business, and carrying my white cane folded up in one hand. Needing both hands to examine something on a shelf, I tucked my folded cane into my purse. The cane was longer than the purse could accommodate, so it stuck out at the end.
Not finding what I was looking for, finally, I decided I had better look elsewhere, and so I meandered out of the store. Just as I reached the outside walk, and was preparing to unfold my cane, I was confronted by a “loss prevention specialist” who said “Can you step back in the store, please?” Innocent kitten that I was, I did so willingly “What seems to be the problem?” I asked.
“We saw you shoplift that item in your purse.” UI was quite startled. I hadn’t put anything 9in my purse so when he escorted me to the back office and aske me to empty my purse, I did so willingly. He picked up the cane and said “You didn’t pay for that!” A-HA! I was floored! “Sir… that is my mobility cane!” I replied.
“NO, it isn’t! You are on camera placing it in your handbag.” “Yes, Sir, I did. I—” “Then you admit to shoplifting it!” This was just about when I realized I was in some serious trouble. Fortunately, logic saved me! “Sir,” I asked “Can you and I go to the aisle where I put this in my purse?” “Yeah, OK, I guess so.”
We went to the place where I had slid the cane into my purse. Taking my folded cane I undid the fastener and allowed the cane to fall out and snap into its extended length. “Now, Sir. Can you tell me where in this store this is sold? I need to see which product you sell was shoplifted and its price.” He stared at the cane as if it had become a snake (eat your heart out, Moses!) and stammered “Uh… I… I’ll have to ask the manager…” He did. The manager came over and we repeated the situation to him, with me explaining the cane, its usage, the fact that the tip was NOT brand new, and it was obviously in used condition and that toy stores do NOT sell mobility canes for blind persons!
The manager fell all over himself apologizing to me and even scolded the “Loss prevention specialist” for having accosted and harassed a blind customer!
Richard Wolff Explains Why 100% Tariffs on Chinese EV is Stupid
My brother once lost a job during his first week at work.
He got a good paying job in a company as a senior IT administrator.
Short story is this; in the USA everyone must get a “drug screening”. And he pissed in a cup, and they discovered marijuana and METH in his urine. And he was fired. It was an IT job.
Drug screening prior to employment in American companies has become a common practice over the years due to concerns about workplace safety, productivity, and liability.
Employers started implementing drug testing programs in the 1980s as part of the "War on Drugs" initiative to address substance abuse issues in the workforce.
Additionally, the Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988 requires certain federal contractors and grantees to maintain drug-free workplaces, which further contributed to the widespread adoption of drug testing policies by employers.
This history has led to drug screening being a standard practice for many companies in the United States today.
He sat down and thought about his situation.
The chances were high that he would also get rejected time and time again until his body was clear of the drugs. That might take nine months. It took too much work to land a job, only to be discarded by a test result.
So he thought about going off on his own.
Not a bad result. As it forced him to set up his own business and get his own clients. And he has been doing well on his own. Personally, it’s always better to be your own boss then being a paycheck slave.
So, yeah.
One bad event can create situations that force you to do things that will lead to far better events.
This is not a bad statement on my brother, or the use of illegal drugs. It is a statement on how bad things, or negative events can force us to do positive things that will be good for us in the long term.
Today…
Why do many people from South Korea think that China is inferior by saying that China’s economy will be in trouble without the aid from other countries? Is China really worse than S Korea in many aspects?
The South Koreans will say anything their US master order them to say. We all know that South Korea is a US poodle colony with tens of thousands of American soldiers everyday trampling on South Korean soil and copulating with South Korean girls.
I pity them.
What is your worst “Karen” story?
I’ve written about another customer on a similar topic, but as we are coming out of a hurricane I would be remiss to not talk about this one.
The year was 2004. My state was hit by multiple hurricanes. I worked in tech support for the cable company, dealing only with internet issues. My office was right on the water and we were watching as night fell and the waves were coming up higher over the patio. We were waiting on the evacuation order and were taking calls up until the last possible minute.
I got a call from someone whose service cut out. I told her that I understand the issue but we are unable to send someone to restore that night as A) it is after 8PM and the techs stopped working and B) we had an impending hurricane. I offered to set an appointment for the next available day which would be 3 days out. She was having none of it.
She understood that there was a hurricane. She understood that it was after the time the techs got off. She even understood that I was waiting for my own order to evacuate. She just didn’t care. She had no concern for my safety or that of my technician. “You tell him to lash his ass to the pole! I need my internet!” I sat there getting yelled at for 15 minutes until they finally sounded the alarm to leave immediately. I told her I was being evacuated and now no longer had the time to book her a tech for three days out and she would need to call back after normal business resumed which was expected to be in two days’ time.
There are no magic words that get you connected faster than anyone else, and that goes for power, phone, internet, any of it. Everybody’s got little kids, a sick grandmother, this or that which is important to them. When it comes to disaster recovery it is always the goal to bring back the greatest number of people in as short a period of time as possible after essential services are restored. You can beg, plead, threaten, or cajole and it makes not a whit of a difference. If we were to take care of everybody who says they need theirs up first ahead of everybody else then we’d still do it in the same order because everybody says it. We will always fix 1500 people before we will fix 15 because it’s a lot easier to deal with 1485 fewer people being pissed off. Preparation also means making plans to busy yourself while you wait for restoration.
Blend cheese and sherry to a smooth paste. Make small incisions 2 1/2 inches apart on both sides of the steak, cutting only halfway through.
Pack the cheese paste into the slits; use it all, making more slits if needed.
Paint one side of the steak with kitchen Bouquet (lightly but thoroughly) and broil 3 inches below heat for 4 minutes.
Sprinkle cooked side of the steak with pepper, turn and paint the other side lightly with Kitchen Bouquet. Broil again for 3 to 4 minutes.
Remove to a warmed platter and sprinkle lightly with more pepper. NO SALT! There’s enough in the cheese.
To the broiler pan juices, add Claret or Burgundy. Stir for 1 to 2 minutes over medium heat to warm through, and pour over the steak.
As a doctor, how do you feel when a patient of yours dies?
Happy ??
He was a painter; she a writer. He had never heard of ‘Michelangelo’; she could not spell ‘Dante’.
He painted house roofs hanging from scaffolds, she copy-wrote Malayalam documents in a document-writers office; but they made a good pair. Despite the fact that he was a Christian and she a Hindu, they fell in love, ended up marrying and settled down; in a small house in the suburbs. Their 3-year-old daughter, who did not clearly understand why her grandparents never visited them, was still not big enough to understand the depth of religious chasms.
Despite the social boycott, they were content with their world.
Till it shattered.
He presented to the Emergency with sudden onset breathing trouble, medically ‘acute pulmonary edema’ resulting from a hitherto undetected narrowed heart valve (Rheumatic Mitral stenosis).
He was put on a ventilator.
24 hours later he developed a massive cerebral infarct resulting from irregular heart rhythm (atrial fibrillation) destroying about half of his brain.
His EEG showed that the chance of his recovery was remote.
But, we need a relatives written consent to disconnect life support, because technically he was alive.
Vegetative state.
I was the resident in charge, in this large hospital and I would meet his wife daily detailing about his condition. She was a thin young lady with a ‘gymnastic-style’ ear-ring, a rabbit tooth and a kid in tow.
Over time, I explained the futility of continuing treatment; the options of DNR, to disconnect from the ventilator, but she refused consent. With no relatives to support, she was perhaps unable to take a harsh decision; clinging to some hope.
A hope that I knew did not exist.
Days passed, his condition deteriorated, but his heart continued to beat, he continued to ‘live’ on a life support system; the bills were mounting. In a non-Govt. hospital, there was no way to cut down cost.
One day the gymnastic rings were missing; I knew she had sold her jewelry.
A relative of mine, who knew them told me that she is now trying to sell off her small house and plot of land, to finance her husband’s treatment; which I was kind of sure that, is going to be fruitless.
I never prayed that he dies. But I prayed that let the inevitable happen fast; before she could sell whatever little earthly possession the family have.
Think of the paradox – we put people on life support system, but because of legal issues we are not sure how to undo it.
I was on duty that night; he died. I was happy, not because he died; but because his family got a chance to live; still retain a place of their own that they call home. A mother and daughter for whom he would have been ready to give his life.
In a heartless society full of religious chasms.
Man Dies; Meets Higher Beings, Sees Wonders in the Afterlife, & History of the Earth!
What incident has traumatized you for good?
I had a best friend. He was originally from Sweden and you could tell he was very easily Swedish by his looks. We were friends for 11 years and maintained constant contact. This was in a different state (I was on vacation)
He did not have the best childhood. His parents were abusive (both from his personal confessions and through unfortanate experience (they were nice to us, but mean to him on the inside). He was also in poverty, but the best thing about him was he was a very nice and cheerful kid.
Well, another side of the story. We were talking on the phone and a loud scream heard from the mic. Subsequently I heard a car crash nearby. It was my birthday and I realized that same car was my friends car. We came to help.
He came out gravely injured. I was really really sad, tears welling up my eyes. The EMD came in and he let me know what happened. I went nuts.
A few days later, he passed away age 11 in the hospital due to a complication after the injury. I was horrified. I was only 13.
The mom wasn’t there during the crash, but the dad and his siblings were killed instantly. After the death of her son. she realized how terrible of a mom she was, and vowed to NEVER abuse any other family member again. She ended up adopted and is a completely different mom now. Rather than spanking, she helps her new son and keeps him well. Sorry, but you’ve already done the damage brother. No apologies given.
A investigation lead to the case being on the news. I found out and was still really saddened by the cause. They said that the crash was a planned attack by a family friend. Cams showed that a middle aged, very pale light blonde-haired woman intentionally was in the other car, trying to act “frightened” to avoid arrest. She was the only occupant. Unfortanately, however the police realized and decided to quickly “interview” her of her actions and she admitted and was arrested on the spot.
The woman was charged with malicious murder and aggravated assault and was sentenced to death row, however she got super lucky and was changed to life in prison.
TLDR: Basically, my friend was allegedly murdered.
Please rest in peace…. Jett.
The sanctions against Russia hurt everyone on this planet, especially the poorer countries, do the rich nations not care about the rest of the world? Are the US & allies being selfish & arrogant? How can we voice our objections to sanctions?
No, they don’t. They don’t even care that the sanctions against Russia are hurting themselves. Their economic growth had dropped to below 1% on average. Germany, Eurtope’s biggest economy, is on the verge of a recession. The NATO countries in Europe are paying more for their energy needs. They have stopped selling goods to Russia, thereby hurting their own trade. But despite all that, they add more sanctions against Russia.
Russia, meanwhile has benefitted from the sanctions. In 2023, their GDP rose 3.6%. In Q1 2024, their GDP rose 5.4%. They look set to have a high GDP growth in 2024, beating all European countries. This view has been expessed by the IMF.
Russia is now manufacturing most of the products that Europe is no longer selling to them. This has resulted in many factories sprouting across Russia, giving full employment to the Russians. They are looking to bring in more workers from Central Asia and Africa to meet the demand for more factory workers. And this major increase in in-house manufacturing is what has increased Russia’s GDP.
Star Wars A New Hope – 1950s Super Panavision 70 | Runway Gen 3
What are you missing in your life?
I am 60 years old. I miss many things, some are given below:
I miss my vigor, figure and energy of my youth.
Recently I lost my parents. I miss them.
I retired from a company after working for 32 years in that company. I miss my colleagues and my work there.
My two sons are married and settled at other places. I miss them.
I have friends who enjoyed partying. But due to health issues they can not party hard now. I miss them.
My friends, relatives used to visit us without prior notice. I used to do the same. I miss that now.
My home was never locked in 25 years, there always used to be somebody at home. Ours was a joint family. Now, me and my wife stay at my home. Even if we both go out for 15 minutes, the house needs to be locked. I miss those open house days.
I am now the eldest in my extended family, so have to behave in such a way that the younger ones should not be embarrassed by it. I miss those carefree days.
Many have found this either sad or scary. I would like to remind everyone, life is a game of hits and misses. A hit in the bull’s eye means one has missed its periphery. Nothing to be sad or scary about it IMO. It is just a fact. Every individual’s journey is from center of things to outer circles, finally into oblivion.
Chinese aircraft carrier Fujian has successfully completed its electromagnetic catapult test. The carrier carries J-15D, heavy duel engine stealthy jet J-35, KJ-500 etc. These are all one generation ahead of the US. What should the US do now?
Well, a Chinese CBG headed by a fujian-class carrier and flanked by type 055 destroyers is a formidable proposition that is the equal or even superior to an American CBG.
That’s an unprecedented development.
The most potent f-35c equipped USN CBG has peer competition, and we are talking 12, 18 months max before the fujian CBG becomes fully operational.
And that’s a worry for a china that already has the production capacity to build 100-150 twin-engine j-35 annually and 1 fujian-class carrier biennially. Ramp-up is not beyond the question either.
The USN has two impending, crippling issues stepping up to the China challenge.
One, the seriously delayed Ford-class program impacting the sustainable size of the supercarrier program. The oldest Nimitz-class hulls will be too expensive to retrofit for f-35c duty while the Ford-class is still riddled with production and operational issues.
Two, the f-35 program running into production snags, such as block software updates, and raw material bottlenecks for sensitive electronics upstream. This will reverberate down to the air wing, particularly crew training and logistic support.
Indopacom’s deployed naval assets will eventually be outnumbered and outclassed by the PLAN, even if the USN commits 100% of deployable assets to the western pacific. We are talking two decades, max, and that includes naval aviation.
The question isn’t what should the USN do but what CAN the USN do.
Even the usn’s nuclear submarine programs are having long-term manufacturing issues that have been filed away.
It appears the USN is pursuing the u-boat wolf pack strategy of the German navy in WWII, massively expanding its attack sub and destroyer fleets.
I say good luck.
Men are Chilling as the World Burns
When China takes over the US, will my 401k transfer to Chinese won or should I cash out now?
It is alarmist to say that China takes over the US. The Chinese do not have high expectations of changing the US, an imperialist country.
But China does have the ambition to help Africa modernize in the coming decades.
Africa’s oceans will turn into mulberry fields, deserts will turn into oases, barren mountains will turn into spacious communities, natural barriers will become thoroughfares, and skyscrapers will rise from the ground. All this will happen in the near future, and Africa is likely to become more developed than Europe.
Africa has a total population of about 1.43 billion, accounting for about 1/5 of the total human population.
As the Chinese Foreign Minister said: Without Africa’s modernization, there will be no world modernization.
What are some possible reasons for the negative attitudes towards the Chinese government and people? Could it be due to a lack of cultural identity or jealousy towards China’s economic status?
It is the zero sum game mindset of hegemonists who use finance as their main source of profit.
They know that China is strong, that China’s political system is OK, that there is no genocide in Xinjiang, that China’s camera density is lower than that of UK, that China is not a police country, that Chinese people are not brainless bots, that China didn’t create any virus, that Chinese people do not steal intellectual property rights, and that China does not have expansionism.
But they have to stick to these lies because they believe that China is an obstacle for them to continue maintaining their current affluent income.
That has nothing to do with any non hegemonic country, nor with any civilians. They are just oligarchs of hegemonic countries.
Some people, whether rich or middle class people, fantasize about themselves belonging to hegemonic camp, but no, neither the victory nor failure of hegemonists cannot prevent the decline of any others’ living standards.
Only when they are put down, other people have a chance to survive.
China’s Done With U.S. Semiconductors, Japan Stocks Collapse As “Asian NATO” PM Wins
What is the scariest real life thing that ever happened to you?
My 14 year old daughter was hanging out with a friend in town (small town, should be safe, right?). My husband and I were at a bbq at his sisters, so we called her to let her know we were on our way to pick her up and she screamed at us that she was being chased by a man with a knife.
Did you know that dodge caravans can do 120mph? I do now. We got there at the same time as with the police, which was probably for the best. I’ve never seen my husband so mad, and he’s a hot tempered man to begin with.
My daughter and her friend had been walking along when this guy took offense to what they were wearing. (They were cosplaying.) A couple of older boys (my hero’s) told him to leave them alone, they’re just a couple of kids. Then, when he pulled a knife, they got in between the girls and the maniac and started swinging their skateboards at him to keep him away. My daughter and her friend ran into the Subway, who let them hide in the back until we got there.
The next scariest was only less scary because I wasn’t there when it happened. Same daughter, 5 years later. She called me and told me not to freak out, which is not a good way to start a conversation. She’d been shot in a drive bye shooting. The bullet ricocheted off the brick wall behind her and lodged in her foot. I don’t think I was driving safely that time, either.
The irony of this is if I had to choose a child who would be chased by a knife wielding tweaker or shot in a drive by shooting, it would not be her. She’s always struggled with anxiety and she’s super safety conscious.
We are the left behind, the ones who didn’t make the cut, the unlucky.When The Arc was created, they said the positions on board would be determined by ballot. Funny how that random selection process took one hundred percent of the rich and famous, the billionaires, the influencers, the celebrities and politicians. Oh, they took others too, the unnamed and unknown. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, all randomly selected. Families were torn apart by the horrible choice, either stay together and die, or separate for a chance at life. My mother chose life, chose her future over me. I was not selected. I was left behind and she went, boarded the huge craft they called The Arc. The chosen few abandoned the Earth with its dying sun, departed for places unknown in the far reaches of space. They said they’d return for us, the ones they left behind. We knew they lied.Then came the Light Stalkers, attracted to the light of the dying sun, like moths to an enormous flame.And we, the left behind, became their prey.****“We need supplies,” Rogue says to those of us gathered in the worn out ruins of an ancient subway. The tunnels provide a safe way to move from place to place. The Light Stalkers can’t follow us down here. “We need to send a scout to the surface.” I don’t know what Rogue had been in his other life. I thought of him as a warrior, like the ancient marines of old. Jesper thought he must have been a teacher, because he knows so much random shit and doesn’t need a computab to assist with recall. It doesn’t matter. You don’t ask questions in the dark.All eyes look at me in the dim light of the glow stone. With Light Stalkers about, you never want to light a place too brightly. The woven basket always sits next to the stone, ready to cover it at a moment’s notice, and plunge our meeting space into darkness.“I’ll go.”It was a semblance of choice, a facsimile of democracy. If I didn’t volunteer, I would be volunteered. I am slight and fast, and I hide in the shadows, moving relatively unseen above ground.“I’ll come too.” At seven, Lillin is technically the youngest of our group.“You can wait for me at the shadow mouth, Lil. I’m faster above ground on my own.” One day I’ll take Lillin with me, it will be good for him to know how to scout and score. If something happens to me and I don’t return from one of my missions to the surface, Lil will need to know what to do. But he is young yet. He doesn’t remember the days before darkness. He has no idea about the horrors that the Light Stalkers can bring. I want to protect that innocence as long as I can. I know Rogue won’t let him be a kid for much longer. Survival trumps innocence.****At the shadow mouth, the entrance to our safe haven, I pause and Lillin hovers at my shoulder.“Lil, your job is to watch the stones,” I tell him as I carefully shove six glow stones into the dull light. They will absorb the weak rays so we can reuse them to light our darkness. “If you see a stalker, retreat, you hear me?” He nods, eyes wide. “You leave those stones and get yourself back into the shadows. I can replace the stones. I can’t replace you.” It is not strictly true. Replacing the stones is risky. They’re not native to earth, so it requires sneaking into a Light Stalker encampment and taking them. That endeavour is a death wish.Cautiously, I exit the safety of the shadow mouth and scamper across the flat expanse of exposed ground, until I reach the shallow overhang opposite. The decaying ruins of the abandoned city provide ample cover and I crawl through the dark, confined spaces formed by walls that have toppled to the ground. I scamper from one pile of rubble to another, short, quick dashes into the dangerous light of the dull red sun that hangs like a pulsating, blood-red wound in the sky.I know what we need. Rogue has planted ancient orange trees nearby. The little schooling I had received in the time before the darkness taught me that the human body needs vitamins to survive, and an important one is VitC. Our bodies need it to fight off disease and infection, so oranges are a staple of our diet. Each year, Rogue and I also plant leafy greens and vine growing beans in scattered places throughout the ruined city. My job is to harvest enough for us to survive for the next few weeks and replant to ensure that there will be food for us in the future. Never take more than you need.I’ll go get the oranges first. That’s the most dangerous part of the mission as the trees grow in the full sun. Although our dying sun is not hot, it’s relentless. Once there had been day and night, but it’s been thousands of years since anyone experienced the phenomenon. Over the last few millennia, the sun expanded in its dying throws, and its size impacted Earth’s gravitational field. The North Pole had been pulled toward the full sun, leaving the South Pole in eternal darkness. Sometimes, Rogue and I would dream of walking to the other side of the world, the dark side, where the stalkers wouldn’t come. But nothing would grow without sunlight and we’d starve to death there. Not to mention that the other side of the world is forever away.The orange grove is around the next corner and I approach with increased caution as I crawl between two walls that have toppled over to form a low tunnel full of lichen and scurrying rodents. The soil here is damp and loamy, pungent with rotting vegetation and excrement. Before the Light Stalkers came, we would use it to fuel our fires, and a small amount would burn for a long time. I scoop up handfuls of the mud and fill my pockets. It’s a precaution that Rogue taught me.At the end of the tunnel, I know I am going to have to run and I prepare myself, check that my satchel is firmly on my shoulder and that my pockets are full. I spend a few moments just watching, searching for any movement, any unusual disturbances. As far as I can tell, it’s safe, but I don’t linger. I dash towards the first tree and huddle for safety beneath its branches. Still safe. I begin to gather the oranges, carefully placing them inside my satchel.When I get to the fourth tree, I hear it, the sibilant hiss that sparks terror in my soul. Silently, I scale the tree, as my heart pounds against my ribs, and hope that the shadows of the branches will be enough to hide me. The stalker walks upright in the sunlight. Bronze scaled skin reflects the cool red light, and the glow stones embedded in the straps that pass for clothing on this creature, glimmer warmer than the sun’s feeble light.The stalker is a bipedal creature with long arms ending in hands that have six multi jointed digits. If one of those hands grabs you, you’re done for. It’ll feed on you, suck the moisture from your entire body, leaving you a dried up husk of a human. They’re unshakable, the best idea is to stay well away from them. The second best idea is to lure them into the shade. They are creatures of sunlight and I’ve seen first hand the intense reaction they have to the shadows.This Stalker has excellent hearing. It turns its head slightly, and I freeze, holding my breath lest it hear me. I wonder if it can hear the ferocious pounding of my heart? There’s nothing I can do about it. My whole body is shaking with each beat. Dark eyes glint in the sunlight as it peers through the branches and then it chitters, a sound I have never heard before. Usually they hiss. I know that it can see me, its eyes are fixed on my hiding spot and I tense my muscles, ready to leap from the tree and run.Another hissing sound pierces the silence, and I see a second stalker shuffling this way. It hisses at the first one and both turn their heads toward the branches where I am hiding. Shit, I’m dead. Outrunning one stalker is one thing, avoiding two is impossible, but I refuse to give in. I will go down fighting. I feel the mud in my pocket. It’s not much, but it will have to do, because I’m dead anyway.
The second stalker steps into the shade beneath my tree. The glowing stones on its body illuminate the darkness, chasing the safety of my shadows away. I wait, not wanting to waste this chance by reacting too soon. Reaching into my pocket, I take careful aim—I will only get one shot at this. With everything that I have, I lob a handful of mud and silently rejoice to see it hit home, covering one of the glow stones on the creature’s shoulder. Instantly, the air around the stalker dims, and it wails as smoke sizzles from its body, while it flaps its arms urgently, trying to slap the mud away. Another shot, another glow stone covered in mud and the light is quenched. The creature screams, disoriented by pain as the fire consumes it, then collapses face first, before it can reach the safety of sunlight, writhing in agony.
I turn my attention to the other stalker. It looks from me to its companion, then quickly plucks two oranges from the tree and throws them at its fallen friend. The oranges hit the mark, covering over the remaining glow stones on the creature’s back, stifling the light and ensuring the stalker’s immediate death in flaming, orange scented smoke. Perhaps it was a compassionate move, like putting an animal out of its misery, but somehow I don’t think so.
The remaining stalker plucks another orange, looks through the branches, and gently tosses it to me. I fumble the catch. With another strange noise, the stalker rips one of the glow stones from the strap on its chest and tosses it up to me. This time I don’t fumble, and I grasp the precious stone with two hands. It nods to me, then at the charred remains of its fallen companion while pointing to its own stones. Cautiously, I clamber down the tree and edge toward the corpse, my eyes not leaving the stalker for one minute. I reach into my pocket for the last handful of mud, ready to hurl it should this remaining stalker make a single movement towards the shadows. It doesn’t move, standing perfectly still, watching me as cautiously as I watch it.
On trembling legs, I step nearer to the smoking corpse. The smell is dreadful, a charred, swampy stench tinged with burnt orange, that causes my eyes to water. I blink rapidly, determined not to lose sight of my enemy. Trying not to breathe in through my nose, I rummage through the charred remains to locate the four stones, two on the front of the corpse and two on the back. When I have them, I stand and search the face of the remaining stalker for any indication of what it is about to do. It’s hard to read the expressions on the reptilian face. The creature barely even blinks.
I hold a glow stone out toward it like an offering and it is then that I notice a change in expression. The mouth quirks up in the corner. Did it just smile? It gestures to its own stone, then points at me and chitters. I point to the stone in my hand, then point to myself and it tips its head. Did it just nod? I feel lightheaded. Have I just communicated with an alien?
It turns its back on me and walks back the way it came, so I use the opportunity to scurry away, silently slipping from shadow to shadow, all the way back to the mouth of our safe haven. Lil is waiting there for me, hiding in the shadows.
“Were you successful?” he asks.
“I think so.” I hand him an orange as I gather up the glow stones that we had left out to charge in the sun.
We, the left behind, may be the only humans left on Earth, but we aren’t the only people here. Now the question is, what are we going to do about it?
25 Missing Kids Discovered Behind Secret Door
https://youtu.be/joJwqdCGVYs
Philly Cheesesteak Stuffed Peppers
philly cheesecake stuffed peppers
Ingredients
1 pound bottom round steak, thinly sliced
2 bell peppers, halved and cored
Avocado oil
Bell peppers, sliced thinly
Red onion, sliced thinly
White onion, sliced thinly
Pickled jalapeños, chopped
1/2 pound Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
Onion salt
Sea salt
Pepper
Instructions
Heat oven 350 degrees F.
Drizzle avocado oil on bell papers. Bake for 17 to 20 minutes.
Heat a large frying pan over medium high and add a little avocado oil.
Season steak with onion salt, sea salt and pepper. Sear each side of steak for about 1 to 2 minutes and remove to let rest a couple minutes.
Cut steak into small 1/4 to 3/8 inch square pieces.
Heat a frying pan over medium heat and add avocado oil when warm.
Add thinly sliced onions and bell peppers to pan and cook while stirring often for about 10 minutes.
Mix steak, cheese, bell peppers, onions and jalapeños in a bowl.
Fill bell peppers, then bake for 10 minutes until cheese is melted.
Wife’s Use Of Social Media To Cheat FINALLY Halted After Hubby Grows A Pair, Leaves Her No Alimony
Well, explain to me what it was doing on the tree if I wasn’t meant to eat it?I had a long, hard day, Adam. If you remember correctly, you were supposed to name all the animals with tails, while I handled the green ones. The next thing I know, you’re passed out by the water circle taking yet another one of your naps. That left me to come up with all those names, and by the time I was done, I was famished.The apple tree is the closest to the water hole, and that’s why I picked an apple. It was convenient. I wasn’t deliberately trying to disobey the Lord. After an exhausting day, I simply wanted whichever fruit I could get to first. Can you explain to me why God put the forbidden fruit so close to us and made it so red to draw our attention to it, and made it so tasty? Adam, if you could try an apple, you would never be the same. I cannot describe its delectability.You may as well try one now. We’ve already been cast out. It’s not as though He’s going to cast us out again. If you ask me, it’s unbelievably rude of Him to have us name every living creature on earth, put all the acceptable fruit out of reach, and then kick us out of the Garden once all the tedious tasks are completed. He didn’t even say “Thank you!” Not even a card expressing his thanks. I realize cards haven’t been invented yet, but if He can create an entire Universe in a few days, I think he can figure out a way to show gratitude, don’t you?Oh, stop crying, Adam. This place isn’t so bad. Sure, it isn’t Paradise, but there are some plants with needles sticking out of them and some lovely dust and a lot of very interesting rocks. That one looks sharp. Be sure to never pick it up and drop it on anybody’s head. Please cover yourself up. I don’t know why, but for some reason, I can’t stand the sight of you in all your nakedness.Shame? What’s that? No, you know I don’t listen when He talks. It’s so loud and condescending. Do this, do that. Name this, worship me, “Stop rolling your eyes at me, Eve, or I’ll turn you back into a rib”–It’s all so boring. If any of it were all that vital to know, he’d write it down on a piece of stone. I suggested that to him once, and he pretended it was a bad recommendation, but secretly, I think he filed it away to use at a later date. The first time I see a rock with a rule on it, I’m going to look up at the sky, and say “Wow, who gave you that idea?” See if I don’t.I’m not afraid of Him, you know. You might be, but I’m not. I’ve barely had time to contemplate my own existence, so the threat of having my existence nullified is of no concern to me. Clearly, He doesn’t want to get rid of us and start from scratch, or He would have done it already. No, he wants to teach us a lesson. He wants us to wander aimlessly for the remainder of our lives cloaked in this thing called shame. I shall not. I refuse. I have nothing to be ashamed of, and I will not pretend that I do. A man makes a silly rule, and if the rule is broken, that does not make it any less silly. I don’t care what sort of man it is. I don’t care if you say God is not simply a man. He sounds like a man, and because he can sound any way he likes, that means he wants to sound like a man. We call Him “He,” don’t we? Then he is a man with made-up rules for living that I was never going to obey.I don’t care if He hears me. Let him hear me. I am meant to spend the rest of my days surrounded by needle-plants and you, a man with one rib. I am meant to wear rags, because not wearing them makes me feel strange. I am meant to have children, I suppose. Based on how disagreeable I am and how stupid you are, I can’t imagine they’ll be very endearing children. Once those children are here, I have no idea who they’ll have children with, because it’ll just be us. I guess that means once we die, and our children die, that’ll be the end of this nonsensical little experiment.Oh, but at least we named the giraffes first.A question for you, Adam, since He isn’t responding to us–Why are we the only ones who can’t eat the apples?I specifically saw a Loud-Bird eating an apple the other day. Why weren’t all the Loud-Birds cast out of the Garden? If a giraffe eats an apple, will it be thrown out of the garden? Why were we the only ones prohibited?
Right–the knowledge.
We’re not meant to know anything. We’re just meant to assign names, be fruitful, multiply, and praise Him every chance we get. If we want knowledge, then it’s out we go.
Well, Adam, I choose to know. I choose to know things. Not just some things, but everything. Why create an entire world and then tell me I’m not allowed to know anything about it? I can’t help but feel this was all some kind of test, and I will not be tested. Had I known that he was testing me, I would have eaten every apple on that tree. I would have stared up at Him with the seeds falling out of my mouth, and I would have laughed. For if I am to go into Exile, I am not going with an empty stomach. I will go with a belly full of apples.
My only regret is that I stopped at one.
I will not feel badly about you being punished for something I did either, because I have been punished many times over for you. For your laziness. For your superiority complex. For the way you smell at night when you are pressed up against me. It reeks so that I can barely sleep. Yet I have said nothing, because I have accepted that we are joined forever. You make strange noises in your sleep, but He never punished you for that. I took one bite, and we are damned. Be angry if you like, Adam, but do not expect me to worry myself over your anger. Your anger is your business. I will not make it mine.
Last night, before He woke us with our punishment, I had a dream. I had a dream that all of this was submerged in water. Enough water to cover even the tops of the tallest trees. There were more people. Lots more. They were running and screaming. Some were already drowned. In the distance, I could see a large boat, but it was too far away. I would never reach it in time. I would die alongside all these strangers.
Instead, I lay myself down. I began to float. Right up to the surface. I could still hear the wailing and the pleading all around me, but I was not making a sound. I simply laid like that on the surface of the water and let it take me wherever it wanted to go.
Source Transmission REVEALS Reincarnation Is NOT A TRAP & MORE!
What was life like for German soldiers in Germany after WW2?
Many of them came to the US and Canada. MANY of them.
When we moved into our new house in a new suburb, it seemed like most living there were either German, and those saying they were Dutch but were possibly German.
I was eight and friends with a girl named Elvira. Yes, that was her name, like the song. She told me her dad used to be in the German Army. Looking at him, I believe he was. He also sounded like one.
There was a boy named Ernest, very blonde hair and my age. He lived in a fairly modern house built along the River. He was in my class. He was German. I figured his dad must have been in the German Army in WWII. We sometimes played together. I never asked him though.
There was an another boy at school named Klaus. He told us that his dad was in the German Army in WWII and fought in Holland. My dad fought as an infantryman in Italy.
One day Klaus and I got into a fight at school. I remember kids standing around us cheering us on. I remember stupidly thinking that I had to beat him because his dad was in the German Army.
At home at the dinner table I told my parents what happened and that I felt had to beat Klaus in a fight because he was a German.
“Why the fight?” Dad asked.
“He told us that his father said the German soldier was tougher than the Allied soldiers. And I said to him, ‘Yeah, that’s why the Germans lost right?’ Then he came and pushed me. We started fighting.”
“They WERE tough. Very tough,” dad said. “I didn’t bring you up to be like that son. The wars over. His dad was more likely a regular German soldier, an infantryman like I was and just doing his job probably because he had no choice. He’s moved here with his family to start a new life. Klaus is not the enemy. He’s a schoolmate. He had nothing to do with the war
“Well it seems we’re surrounded dad,” I said.
Dad laughed. Then he said, “They’re our neighbors now. Let’s treat them like neighbors.”
Oddly enough Klaus and I got to be friends. One day I went to his house. We walked into the kitchen and his dad was there. His dad looked just like any other dad. He looked at us and smiled.
“Ah, you are hungry maybe,” he said. He took two dark pieces of bread and put a lot of butter on them. He gave us both a slice of buttered bread. Then he said, “Ach, warten!” He went into the cupboard and took out a chocolate bar and broke it in half giving us each a piece.”
That was the best tasting snack ever. I realized his dad was just like mine and dad was probably right.
What are the most extreme things you have done to stick to a budget?
Originally Answered: What's the most extreme things you have done to stick to a budget?
I once tracked all our expenses down to the penny for an entire year.
It was a few years after my husband and I had graduated from college. We did a startup right out of college and we had ruined our credit by financing a number of things for the business using our personal credit.
We had closed our startup a few months prior and joined a company. We were making a good salary, but we still had a bunch of credit card debt, and our credit score was not the best.
I calculated that between the two of us, we were paying between $70 to $130 more a month for our car loans than we would if could get the best rate.
At the time, I was also starting to think about saving for a home. The rental rates where we lived were quite high, and I calculated that if we could get together a down payment, we would be able to purchase a home and pay only a little more per month for the mortgage than we were paying for rent.
That is, if we could save enough for the down payment, and if we had a perfect credit score.
With our credit score at the time, the same mortgage would cost us several hundred dollars more per month.
Our bad credit was already costing us money, and would only cost us more in the future. I was super motivated to fix our credit.
I knew we had to get rid of all our credit card debt, and get out of the habit of carrying a balance at all.
I sat down and drew up a spreadsheet of all the things we normally spent money on, using our bank and credit card statements for the previous months as a starting point.
I created categories for our expenditures, slotting everything we were spending into those categories. Rent, utilities, groceries, car loan, insurance, repairs and maintenance, eating out, cell phones, internet, entertainment, gifts, vacations…
I didn’t leave anything out. Anything that didn’t fit neatly into a category went into a miscellaneous bucket.
I then analyzed the spreadsheet and made a plan of where we could cut our expenses. When I was ready, I sat down with my husband. Together, we agreed on what we should be spending in each category.
Then we put our plan into action.
We started by canceling and cutting out everything we agreed to.
We got rid of some subscriptions we were rarely using. We stopped buying beverages out and starting toting around water bottles that we filled at home. When we wanted soft drinks or snacks, we purchased them in bulk at the grocery store. Since we had slashed our eating out budget, I started to cook more often.
For several weeks, I entered our expenditures into the spreadsheet every single night. When I was sure we were sticking to our plan, I started entering things once a week, then once every month.
For a whole year, every single item got tracked. We weren’t allowed to buy a single pack of gum without logging it into the spreadsheet. I even logged the 50 cents I gave to an occasional homeless person.
Little by little, we paid off our credit card debt. After a few months, it became second nature for us to be aware of how things added up. After a year, I was comfortable that we had formed good long term habits, and I finally stopped logging things into the spreadsheet.
Over time, our credit score improved. I’m happy to say, it’s been over 15 years, and we haven’t slipped since.
U.S. Hurricane Survivors Without Electric; Biden Gave Transformers and Switching gear to UKRAINE!
Hundreds-of-thousands of Americans presently without electricity from Hurricane Helene, may not see their electric power restored soon because the Biden Administration GAVE spare transformers and switching gear to . . . UKRAINE!
While all electric utility companies in the US keep spare pole transformers in supply locally, there is a national reserve of such transformers for situations like Hurricanes, where hundreds or even thousands of such devices need replacing.
But that reserve is now gone because the Biden administration gave the gear to Ukraine, to restore _their_ electric grid after the Russia-Ukraine conflict destroyed it.
Now that Americans find themselves in need of those electrical transformers, there are few (if any) to be had.
Once again Americans are being harmed by a federal government that galivants around the world, meddling in the affairs of others, instead of working for the American people who actually employ them.
Election day is coming. Throw out the people who did this.
A Particular Set of Skills | Taken (2008) Realtime Movie Reactions
Why is Quora flooded with pro-China opinions?
Pro China?
I just came across a China bashing post that garnered 8k upvotes in less than 24 hours.
It will be hard for any pro China answer to hit 800 upvotes in a week or two, much less 10x that in a day. What do you expect on an English platform owned by Americans? That Chinese voices will become louder and more numerous than “freedom toting” Westerners?
Totally unrealistic.
There are plenty of negative political statements dressed as questions on China stating half truths or even lies as fact.
I’d say there is heavy anti-Chinese sentiment supported on Quora, if anything.
Do you think democracy in China and the West is comparable?
Only in one sense: How well does their democracy improve the quality of life of their citizens?
They have different models of democracy based on different philosophies. So the mechanics of their systems cannot be compared.
In terms of how well they serve their people, we may come to two conclusions:
Chinese democracy has greatly improved the lives of the people.
Western democracy, esp. in America, Britain, France and Germany, for example, has neglected the well-being of the people.
Which would you prefer?
How is it that docile farm raised pigs when let into the wild become such aggressive wild boars?
Well… when I was majoring in Animal Science, we took classes in Swine Production and worked hands-on with the pigs at the Cal Poly Pomona swine unit.
We did things like weigh adult and suckling pigs, measure back fat thickness, spray for lice (!), castrate and ear-notch young pigs, help restrain young boars so their tushes (look it up) could be cut.
Domestic pigs are NOT, repeat, NOT docile! Especially sows with suckling babies. If you have to handle the babies, you better have a couple people to stave mama pig off while you handle the screaming baby. Or you better be awfully quick on your feet to put a fence between you and mama pig.
(Pigs vocalize LOUDLY when you’re handling them. Measuring back fat thickness on live hogs, you’re exposed to a noise level that makes the up-close takeoff of a jet aircraft seem a whisper by comparison.)
One of the guys who worked at the swine center got into a situation handling some market-sized hogs where he was in a corner and couldn’t get out fast enough over the fence. He got a bite on the leg that took more than 40 stitches to close.
No, domesticated pigs are not automatically docile.
That said, if they’re handled regularly from a young age, pigs can be manageable. 4-H kids and Future Farmer teens are expected to be able to show their pigs in livestock shows and fairs using nothing but a cane to manage the pig’s movements while the judging is done.
Here’s the thing about domestic pigs: they’re SMART. That’s why, if they become feral, they manage very well for themselves, thank you very much!
Having handled farm hogs, I have to say they’re my least favorite farm animal to handle: they’re big (a mature boar can be over 1000 pounds, and contrary to the image pigs have as fat animals, most of their soft-tissue weight is muscle; market hogs are 250 to 400 pounds; sows are 400 to 700 pounds). They can move very, very fast, they’re agile and athletic, and they aren’t afraid of people. They have a mouth full of teeth that would shame a pit bull and if their tushes haven’t been cut, they can slash you with a sideways move of their head.
Pigs take readily to shifting for themselves. Domestic pigs may be habituated to having humans around, but I sure wouldn’t consider them docile.
“U.S. Will Default” – Sovereign Debt Collapse To Flip Global Monetary System
What is your worst “Karen” story?
This is ancient history, but it resonates so clearly for me, with an outraged complainer ignoring the reality of her surroundings demanding immediate attention to whatever problem she wanted fixed.
Shortly after I graduated from nursing school in 1982, I was a 3–11pm shift charge nurse on a medical surgical unit.
One of our patients who was being evaluated for the tumor in his brain was walking down the hallway carrying a metal ice water pitcher and his glass drinking glass.
As I saw him walking towards me, he fell to the ground, ice and broken glass everywhere, in a full grand Mal seizure. (His first).
As I was kneeling in the glass ,in my dress uniform and pantyhose, making sure his airway was open, that he didn’t bite his tongue, making sure he’d had no injury due to the fall/broken glass, etc.
I feel a firm hand tapping on my back…”Miss.then MISS! My husband is out of Kleenex!!!”
Why does America stupidly use high fructose corn syrup in their soda instead of real sugar?
The story behind how America adopted High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is long and involved, but far more interesting than you might think. Buckle up!
In 1973 there was an oil crisis when OPEC jacked up prices driving America into recession. Policy makers were seriously alarmed and decided the US had to cut its dependence on foreign oil immediately. One suggestion was shifting to gasohol, a mix of gasoline and ethyl alcohol.
Ethyl alcohol can be made from corn; Archer Daniels Midland the company responsible for most of America’s corn harvest absolutely loved this means to sell more corn and invested in many factories to turn corn into ethyl alcohol. Now gasohol makes sense when gas prices are high, but when they are low there is no market, so when gas prices dropped again, ADM was stuck with these idle factories and no idea what to do with them.
The ADM brain trust put its mind to the problem and realized the factories could be repurposed to produce this cool new sweetener discovered less than ten years earlier called high fructose corn syrup. Fantastic! There was only one problem. Sugar was cheaper than the cost to produce HFCS. How could they make a profit?
ADM was nothing if not determined. If you cant make your product any cheaper, what if the price of sugar could be increased? Sugar was cheap because foreign sugar manufacturers produced it cheaply and then dumped their supply in the US. There was a tiny American sugar industry but it was small and feeble because American sugar was more expensive to produce than the cheap foreign sugar.
ADM approached those American sugar growers to discuss this unfair competition. Out of the goodness of their corporate heart they offered their lobbyists to get congress to vote for a large sugar tariff to protect our “strategic” American sugar producers. Congress duly obliged, a huge tariff on foreign sugar went in place, and the price of sugar skyrocketed. God bless America! It was a great day to be an American sugar producer!
Unfortunately, it was an even better day to be an enormous agricultural corporation with a vast untapped ability to produce HFCS. With sugar prices about to become sky high, ADM secretly negotiated contracts to supply Coca-Cola, Pepsi, General Mills, McDonald’s and every other processed food manufacturer with HFCS. When the tariff went into effect, American sugar manufacturers found they had traded one shaft for another.
And that is how in one stroke one company changed the American food supply to the tune of $5+ billion annually.
9-Year-Old Boy Shares His REINCARNATION CASE From Hungary in 1930
Sid was one of the smartest boys in my class. He, and another; “J Eck” were the top smartest kids. Myself, and these two always got “straight A’s” in everything. And it is true, not only were we great friends, but we all had an after-school life that was heavy in books, and adventure.
Both Sid, and “J Eck” dropped out of college and took a wide selection of “bottom feeder” jobs. Sid was a roust-about, and J. Eck worked in the lumber yards. Doing the same thing over and over and over.
Getting by on low wages and living in the same town year after year.
Sid died in his early 40’s. Rumor has it that it was probably drug related. J. Eck is set to retires if not already) from a lifetime of making wood pallets.
shutterstock 608426399
Sid was a roustabout for most of his life. He worked the oil fields and the great wide spaces in the ‘Plains and fields of the countryside. I can see him doing that and enjoying it.
roustabouts
But he died so young.
What happened?
Why did I go though the adventures that I did, and end up in China?
None of us had strong role models. Our parents were hit smack when the 1970’s woman’s feminism movement hit its stride and our fathers were auto-marginalized. All the men’s organizations, such as barbershops, clubs, and gangs were evaporating, going co-ed, or being polluted by a Gay movement or whatever. (Think Boy Scouts, and the YMCA.) Sure it took decades to manifest, but back then, we had no strong male role models.
We had television.
watching TV
And they misled us and distorted our life and expectations of reality.
brady bunch
So, all three of us (Sid, Eck and myself) we similar. But our outcomes were all different.
Why?
Well, for one, I had a goal and a dream. I wanted to fly into space and meet aliens. Which I actually did. But at that time, it was my driving dream.
Sid and Eck, well, they were just floating on an ocean without wind in their sail. Trying to make it with the skills that they had, but with no guidance and direction.
I also had a plan; not much of a plan. But a plan. Go study engineering. Go into the military. Get a pilot role, and then seize whatever opportunities came my way. My other friends didn’t have any plans. Any dreams, or any goals.
But perhaps, the most important aspect was that I never gave up. I never bailed out from anything. I was the stupid plow horse that would do things day in and day out. In fact, I might have been smart, but I sure as hell was unaware. So I just plodded on, and over time, with enough experiences, you will get a good enough percentage of opportunities to seize. And that is what happened.
Is my life perfect? No. I have all kinds of things that I deal with. But I am making the best with what I have. And that is the reality.
Sid was like a bright star that climbed to the stars and exploded.
Eck is that star that never ignited; never got a chance to shine. He ran on low his entire life, and then slowly faded and died out.
And myself… I’m that start that is way, way over at the edge of sight. Still burning. Still shining, but no one ever notices.
…
Be the best star that you can possibly be. Man, woman, or animal. Be the best and stop comparing yourself to others. There isn’t anything good or bad about Sid and Eck. They were just different. Pick the star chart that fits you.
I believe in you.
Today…
Nike
In 1985, Nike begged a rookie Michael Jordan for help. He said no. Twice. Their response? A move so crazy, it got them fined $5k per game. This is the untold story of the riskiest deal in sports history (that now makes $7 BILLION a year):
main qimg 3989e4e23d555fb8132aeab3dd584a9d
Before 1985, Nike was STRUGGLING to break into the basketball market. It’s hard to imagine such a wealthy company having money problems, but at the time, they were desperate for someone like Jordan. For good reason, too:
Nike’s lack of popularity was a HUGE barrier to the deal. Jordan didn’t even want to sign with Nike! His first pick? Adidas. His second pick? Converse. But, the company eventually won him over with an offer he couldn’t refuse…
In 1984, Nike offered Jordan an unprecedented deal: A 5-year, $2.5 million contract plus 5% of EVERY shoe sold. At the time, it was triple what any other NBA player was getting. But Nike went even further—they gave Jordan complete creative control of the shoe’s style:
The Air Jordan 1 debuted in 1985 with colors that violated NBA uniform rules. Jordan was fined $5,000 PER GAME for wearing them, but Nike embraced the controversy, paying the fines and marketing the shoe as rebellious. The result? $126 million in sales in the first year alone.
Air Jordans quickly became popular beyond basketball. From hip-hop to Hollywood, the shoes became a symbol of status and style. This crossover appeal expanded Nike’s reach, creating a lifestyle brand embraced by athletes, celebrities, and average folk alike:
The release of Air Jordans fueled the rise of sneakerhead culture. People lined up for hours to grab limited editions, turning shoes into collectibles. The hype was real—and it still is. Today, the resale market for rare Jordans is worth billions.
While Jordan earned $90 million from his NBA career, his partnership with Nike has made him a billionaire. By 2023, Jordan had earned over $1.8 billion from Nike alone. What started as a rookie shoe deal turned into one of the most profitable endorsements in sports history.
This brand created a powerful community. The sneaker community brings together all walks of life and even inspires entrepreneurship.
The Air Jordan brand continues to thrive, bringing in billions annually and influencing athletes, designers, and businesses worldwide. (Also accounting for 10% of Nike’s TOTAL revenue.) Michael Jordan didn’t just win championships—he built an empire.
What is your worst “Karen” story?
I was at Best Buy a number of years ago. I heard two people talking about a computer they were looking at and they had some questions. So I politely introduced myself and asked if I could help. Got them squared away and then went on about my business.
Then someone started clearing their throat. I didn’t think anything of it because I was engrossed in what I was doing. Finally, I heard an exasperated sigh and a rude tap on my shoulder. I turn around and look down to see a clearly angry lady standing there.
I turned to her:
Me: Ummm… yes?
Karen: sigh… hello, I need help with a cell phone.
Me: ok…
Karen: well, are you going to help me?
Me: Mam, I don’t work here…
Karen: Look, I know this isn’t your dept. but I waited patiently while you helped that couple for 20 min, and I know you are just a lowly peon, but you could at least get me some help.
Me: Look lady, I don’t work here.
Karen: That’s it, I am going to have your job!
And she stomped off. I shrugged it off and didn’t think about her again.
5 min later she comes back with another guy.
Karen: I want this person disciplined. He was disrespectful, rude, and refused to help me.
Best Buy Guy: Mam, he doesn’t work here.
That’s when I had an epiphany. I look down and realized I was wearing khaki pants and a blue polo shirt.
Karen: Good! I told you I would have your job!
Best Buy Guy: No mam, I can’t fire him, he is not an employee, see, I have the logo <points to his shirt> and he doesn’t <points at my shirt> now how may *I* help you.
Karen: Oh this is ridiculous, you stupid bastards are just sticking together. I am writing corporate to complain and I am NEVER coming to this Radio Shack again!!
Best Buy dude and I look at each other and in almost unison say: “Ok then” and watch her storm off.
GROUNDBREAKING STUDY of 4000 NDEs: Doctor UNCOVERS Near Death Experiences TRUTH | Dr. Jeffrey Long
What parallels can be drawn between the state of the world now, and the build up to WW2? In particular are the tensions over Taiwan, conflict in the middle east and the rise populaism, all evidence another major world conflict is coming?
I am not familiar with the WW2 in Europe. I only know the one in Asia that was waged by the imperialist fascist Japan who said Japan were chosen by Japanese god to rule Asia. At one time, Japan did colonise almost the entire Asia.
First, dont worry about Taiwan which is under good control of China. What you should worry about is South China Sea. If ever there were a war in Asia, it would be Philippines, a US puppet, who provokes China enough to start a war. Just like Ukraine to Russia. Same US formula.
Mideast
In the Sep 2024 UNGA, Netenyahu made it clear he wanted to rule Mideast. USA who is losing influence in Mideast also wants Israel to rule Mideast so that USA can focus on Asia ie China.
That is why Netenyahu kept provoking Iran, thru assassinations.
China
History tells us that when the dominant country faces the challenge from the rising country, the dominant one, out of desperation, will wage a war, so as to “die” with the rising one.
Who is the dominant one since WW2? USA.
Who is the rising one since 1980? China.
So far, USA has lost many “wars” to China. Trade war. Trump’s crazy tariff failed to slow down China.
Trump house-arrested Huawei’s CFO so as to blackmail Huawei. Failed. In 2024, Huawei has surpassed iPhone.
Semiconductor & chips. Again failed. China has partially become self-reliant & self-sufficient. Will be fully independent soon.
In Sep 2024, US capitalist sharks went to China to seek a dialogue so as, in their words, not to miscalculate. In short, USA has lost its 2-year financial war to China. It beat down Japan though.
Not to mention USA is to lose its USD & financial hegemony once BRICS matures.
What is left for USA in face of China? Military war esp if Democrat wins election.
I may sound pessimistic. Look at the sabotage of Nord Stream. Somebody was desperate to sell its gas to Europe so as to make money.
I prefer my steaks well done at a steakhouse. Why do most people view a perfect steak as only medium grilled?
As one who prefers your steak well done, you are doing the steakhouse a valuable service, according to professional chef Anthony Bourdain, in his famous book “Kitchen Confidential”
People who order their meat well-done perform a valuable service for those of us in the business who are cost-conscious: they pay for the privilege of eating our garbage. In many kitchens, there’s a time-honored practice called “save for well-done.” When one of the cooks finds a particularly unlovely piece of steak—tough, riddled with nerve and connective tissue, off the hip end of the loin, and maybe a little stinky from age—he’ll dangle it in the air and say, “Hey, Chef, whaddya want me to do with this?” Now, the chef has three options. He can tell the cook to throw the offending item into the trash, but that means a total loss, and in the restaurant business every item of cut, fabricated, or prepared food should earn at least three times the amount it originally cost if the chef is to make his correct food-cost percentage. Or he can decide to serve that steak to “the family”—that is, the floor staff—though that, economically, is the same as throwing it out. But no. What he’s going to do is repeat the mantra of cost-conscious chefs everywhere: “Save for well-done.” The way he figures it, the philistine who orders his food well-done is not likely to notice the difference between food and flotsam …
This is not to say every time you receive a well-done steak you’ve been paying full price for the privilege of helping the chef dispose of inferior meat, but it’s safe to say you’re at higher risk of it than your medium-rare steak-loving dining companions are.
Chefs know that once a steak is cooked until there’s no pink left whatsoever (overcooked) the customer isn’t going to be able to taste the difference anyway. Fresh meat, stale meat, doesn’t matter. That makes you a valued customer. It benefits the steakhouse’s inventory management.
Cooking your steaks at home might be the best bet for ensuring you’re getting what you pay for.
I have friends who dislike medium and medium-rare steak, and often the reason they feel this way is because they’re uncomfortable with the center of the steak being pink and “bloody”. Which is understandable.
However, this is based on a misperception. The red juice coming out of a steak is not blood. It’s myoglobin, a protein that when exposed to oxygen, turns pink or red. There’s no such thing as a bloody steak. It’s just juice. It’s a sign that the steak is cooked just right. This is something you might consider, if that’s a factor in your choice to have your steaks cooked until they turn gray inside.
I am inclined to take your side because I think people should eat whatever style of food they want, prepared however they like, even if others disagree or disapprove. Even if I personally think you’re wrong, you have the right to order whatever you like, however you like it. It’s a free country, man.
Yet I also sympathize with your friends, dining companions, acquaintances, or people in general who voice opposition to steak “well done”, viewing it as inferior way to cook and serve steak. When they dine out, there’s a good chance that they’re being served better-quality steaks.
But since you prefer your steaks well-done, and you won’t be able to tell the difference between fresh steak and not-fresh steak anyway, what’s the harm? Everyone wins.
There it is. At least I think that’s it, though it might be a cloud bank. Or land, shrouded in mist. Anyway, it’s beautiful, and it’s my future.It’s only eighteen miles away, but at this very moment it might as well be eighteen thousand. I’ve heard that people used to swim there in the old days – cover themselves in goose fat against the cold, then breast-stroke the whole distance. They’d have a boat beside them for support, which seems a little senseless; why didn’t they simply get in the boat?I’m going by boat myself, not sure when. I’ve got my deposit down – a thousand creds, which isn’t cheap. There are people that’ll do it for half that, but I’ve heard of bodies washing up on the shore, and I’m not so keen on dying just yet. My man, Maurice – I’m sure that’s not his real name – has a good reputation. You won’t find his name on the I-net, obviously. The necessarily scant word-of-mouth that finds its way to me says he only uses the best-quality boats – safe and quick. And not overloaded; at the price he charges, he can afford to keep numbers down.If I get a bit nearer the edge … careful, careful, the ground’s very crumbly here. Yes, that’s it, I think, down there on the right – that little cove, with the grey waves lapping in. Perfectly hidden from the patrol boats. Not sure how we’re going to get there. Rope ladder? Secret tunnel? Search me. I’ll find out nearer the time. Mustn’t get too impatient. That’s when the slips come; a loose word might mean the difference between escape and the clink. Or worse.To be honest, I can hardly contain my excitement. I think about it every minute of every day, although my thoughts are rather vague. No one knows for sure what’s over there, except, I imagine, those at the very top of the regime, or in the Ministry of Splendid Isolation. Or Maurice.I asked him; all he would say was “It’s different”. I wanted to know what that meant. He said he didn’t want to expand. I could see from his face that it was different in a good way. One thing I couldn’t work out – if it’s so different, and in a good way – was why he doesn’t take one of his boats and just stay there. I asked him that, too. He simply shook his head, then patted his heart.Apart from his ferrying activities, the MSI would arrest him if they caught him extolling the virtues of anything other than what we have here. Our countryside is the best, they say. I must admit that the sooty-grey hillsides, the plains, the coast, all have a certain austere beauty. Our music is the best, they say. It’s not a lie – I don’t think I’ll ever tire of pipes and drums. Our food is the best, they say. I do quite like cod-meal and oats, but my tongue and tummy protest sometimes. I must never say that out loud, however.Nor must I ever show anyone my paintings. When I’m not at the factory, I take my paper and vegetable-dye paints down to the riverside; the smell is sometimes bearable when the wind’s blowing in the right direction. I paint the dark, skeletal trees that grip desperately onto the bank; I paint the slate-grey rainclouds crawling across the sky; I paint the birds that perch in the branches of the trees, then take flight to swoop along the river. I like to paint their bright colours, which is highly illegal, of course.When anyone passes, I hide the work in my fishing bag and grab my rod. I’ll have already used it to cast a float out into the dawdling waters. I’m taking a risk with this subterfuge, naturally; everyone knows there are no fish left to catch in the rivers. I bank on people imagining that I’m an old eccentric, to be pitied, no more. So far it seems to have worked,I’d like to hang the paintings on my wall, but that would be far too risky. I keep them rolled up under the floorboards. I know it’s a crime to produce the paintings – and to store them. However, I can’t begin to describe the curious, irresistible impulse that enters my being at times. I do know it’s stronger than me.This is the main reason I need to leave. I want not to have to think twice about every idea I have, every word I say, every painting I produce. Plenty of people seem quite happy with their lot, that’s fine. But I’m sure – I don’t know how – that this is not all there is. That the reason we’re here in this world is not merely to serve the regime.Yes, I’m eager for the days when I don’t have to hide … anything. When I can sit with a friend to discuss painting, relationships, the weather, and not be afraid that an unfriendly ear will report it as sedition.The woman in the room next to mine, Catherine, who I liked very much, was caught in this way. A neighbour from down the corridor was fond of her too. When she rebuffed his advances, he engineered a meeting between her and a teacher from his son’s school, who he also held a grievance against. A word to the MSI and they quickly discovered the two – simply talking. That was enough. She was jailed for fifteen years for conspiracy. The teacher disappeared.Of course, while it’s important to heed these threats, it’s equally important not to give them too much weight. Dwelling on them can drive a person mad – a man from the next block took his own life last week, for instance. I’m determined not to go that way. And so the boat…
I asked Maurice how I should prepare for the journey. He told me to travel light, which is a little ironic because I possess next to nothing. According to him, I should wear warm, waterproof clothes; I have two sweaters, which I’ll wear one on top of the other, and I’ll fashion a cagoule from bin-bags. He said that creds can easily be traded for local currency (though I won’t have much money to trade – even less after paying the rest of the fare).
When we met, he briefly taught me some of the local lingo to get me started, and I’ve been turning it over in my head ever since. Just short phrases, like:
Bonjour. Je m’appelle Philip.
Simple words that feel like freedom on my lips and tongue.
What actions have caused tension between the US and China? Why is there tension between these two countries?
I think nobody has explained about that more accurately than Obama. The US doesn’t want China to become prosperous because it feels that all the good things in life is deserving only for the US and its lapdogs.
Obama once told an Australian journalist:
if over a billion Chinese citizens have the same living patterns as Australians and Americans do right now then all of us are in for a very miserable time,
That’ was a painful and revealing honesty. In short, in the mind of the west, the world can continue with a billion of Chinese dead but the world can’t have the US and the west to miss even a good meal.
Pirates of the Caribbean – 1950’s Super Panavision 70
In boot camp, what happens if a particular recruit always finishes last or doesn’t appear to be making much effort?
It absolutely gets noticed. And being noticed is normally a bad thing.
The common advice is that you should try to be the “gray man” who doesn’t get noticed. It’s easier to just get by unnoticed and graduate so you can move on with your career. Certainly being the worst/last is going to cause you to have a hard time (but also sometimes being first/best can be a problem too).
When I went through training we were not referred to by name but by number. It made it easier to track who we were and also which unit we belonged to, especially early on in training. (I’m sure there was also an element of dehumanizing us involved too.) The Drill Sergeants only knew (or at least they only used) the actual names of those recruits who had gotten noticed… for poor performance.
Now, it’s not the end of the world if you’re last in some event. Somebody has to be last. And maybe you’re the slowest, but you really put in all your effort and you still met (or even exceeded) the standard. You just so happen to be in a unit full of studs that skew the scores. That’s okay too. For the most part, the training cadre are among the best of the best. They know when weaker guys are pouring their all into it just to scrape by the same as they can tell when a really gifted recruit is just skating by with minimal effort. The issue arises when you’re repeatedly last and there is that lack of effort.
We had a Soldier in my platoon who had a bad attitude and gave almost zero effort. I don’t know all the details (I was just a dumb recruit at the time), but he was recycled into our platoon for PT reasons. I think he had just barely failed the final PT test because he wasn’t trying hard enough on the run. He complained all the time about how they should have graduated him, but they didn’t allow him to retest. Instead they dumped him back into our unit to do an addition 6 or so weeks of Basic on top of what he’d already done. I believe this was because they were hoping more training might fix his attitude.
Well, after a few weeks with us, one day at the dinning facility a drill sergeant calls him out. “Why is it that you are ALWAYS dead last whenever we’re going anywhere, private? Except when we go to chow you’re always the first one in line?” And it was absolutely true. He was fast enough and smart enough to get himself to chow near the front all the time, yet he was always malingering near the rear at any other time. And the cadre absolutely noticed.
So what happened to him? Well, he had to do almost twice as much training as anybody else because he was recycled. They also refused to allow him to retest (when they could have done so), they recycled him FARTHER back into cycle than they needed to, and they forced him to participate in all these training events he’d already done. The cadre were hard on him the whole time because of his attitude, and most of the rest of the recruits shunned him too because we all recognized that he was a turd and was pulling the group down (even before he got called out at chow).
I wish I could say any of this worked. He remained generally defiant about the whole situation and never gave it his all (although he did pass the final PT test giving just slightly more effort this time). He graduated with my class. Although he absolutely did not have a good time and made almost no friends in training.
Why do all the military branches dump on the Air Force?
At least in the US, the perception is that Air Force folk are soft. They don’t train nearly as hard and as rough or put up with anything like as much BS as I experienced in Army basic training. And their creature comforts are the best offered by any of the services. As in flat out luxurious compared to the Army, and I assume, Marines.
For the most part, though, dumping on them is just good natured fun.
And to be fair, it doesn’t make sense to put airmen through the kind of training intended to prepare them for the kinds of things people in the Army and Marines need to prepare for. The toughness of basic and AIT (and whatever Marines call their basic and AIT) has a purpose. Yeah, a lot of it is mindless machismo, but much of it is intended to prepare folk in those branches for rough and tough stuff they might actually have to do and deal with in case of war.
Even in case of war, though, it’s highly unlikely that airmen will have to stay in foxholes for weeks, or hike twenty miles with full rucksacks. So why waste time making them do that in training, instead of train them for the technical stuff they’ll actually need to know in order to be useful?
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(Airmen don’t and won’t have to deal with this, so why waste time training them for it? Writers Cafe)
And as to luxurious creature comforts and what seems like coddling, welp… the reality is that a lot of airmen do highly technical stuff that’s in high demand in the civilian world. E.g.; I was a TOW gunner – not a whole lot of demand for that in the job market. So the Army could get away with throwing away the kid gloves when treating 11H and similar MOSes. Air Force computer techs or airplane mechanics and the like, though – if they don’t like how they’re treated, they have better options than do their brethren in the other branches. They simply won’t reenlist when their 4 years or whatever are up, fairly confident that with the skills they learned in service, they can land a civilian job that pays a lot more than Uncle Sam does.
So for purposes of retention, the Air Force has more of an incentive to treat its members nice than the other branches do. They’re literally more valuable in the job market and are easier to lose. Accordingly, the Air Force tries to be as nice to them as possible, in order to increase the likelihood of their sticking around.
What are some benefits of aging that people may not realize until later in life?
The whole “getting there” thing. Just this morning I got a phone call. My ex-wife calling. She told me a mutual friend of ours, one of my daughters’ godfathers, had just died. He was 32 years old. A writer, like me. Struggling, like me. A hopeless romantic, like me. And now, a dead man. Unlike me. The guy was a mountaineer, a poet, a very healthy, well-built young man. Fit as a fiddle. Until he wasn’t. This morning he had a heart attack and passed away before reaching the hospital.
He never got to publish his first novel. Never got to write a screenplay. Never got to be a famous author, and he was so good, his words so pure. He had a good heart. He loved to drink on occasion, he could get philosophical and deep and he was well-read. A good sense of humor, didn’t take himself too seriously or unseriously. A sensitive soul. A lost soul. But also “lost and found” as he’d gotten together with a wonderful woman about eight years ago and she had changed his life for the better. A few years ago he left the bustling city life of his youth for a quiet life in the province. Mountain tops, hills and valleys all around him. Little rivers. Lazy creeks.
I remember the last time we talked and had some drinks — April 2023. We drank whiskey. Smoked a cigar. And thought of the good old days. When we first met. He was jovial, at times introspective. But every part of him screamed “young man in the prime of his life”. There was this fire in his eyes, this little twinkle of life. He was slender, fit, and he had this sense of humor. Sometimes he would laugh at his own jokes. Seeing the humor in his own failings. We promised each other we’d still get together and drink even when we’d be old men. We would still talk about literature, about the novels we had written, about the novels we still planned to write or that were still in the works. We’d be joined by our wives, our children and grandchildren…
The greatest benefit of aging is growing old in the first place. You’re a lucky man if you get to be old. If you get the privilege of still standing at the end of the road. We bury friends along the side of that road. We lose lovely people. And we cry for them. Or we don’t. We miss them in little unguarded moments. Our hearts ache for them. And we carry on. And as much as it hurts… we’re the lucky ones, for still carrying on. I drink to the spirits of my fallen brothers. And my eyes are dry but my heart silently weeps. Count your blessings.
Ranch Round Steak
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Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients
1 (3 pound) round steak
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons dry mustard
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Instructions
Cut steak into serving size pieces; trim away excess fat and pound to tenderize.
Combine flour, dry mustard, salt and pepper; use to coat meat. Reserve remaining flour mixture.
In skillet, brown meat, half at a time, on both sides in hot shortening. Push meat to one side; stir in reserved flour mixture.
Combine water and Worcestershire sauce; stir into skillet mixture. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly, reduce heat. Cover and simmer for about 1 hour or until meat is tender.
Remove meat to platter.
Skim excess fat from gravy. Drizzle gravy over meat and serve.
A sad cat
“This cat slept on the pillow next to my mother’s every night. As my mother grew weaker, I began taking care of the cat. Seven months later, my mom passed away peacefully in her home, just as she had wished. The cat was in her usual spot by my mother’s head. When the funeral home arrived to take my mother’s body, the cat refused to leave the bed. After my mom was gone, the cat paced up and down the bed, letting out low, loud meows—a heartbreaking sound that was pure grief.
After about 15 minutes of this, I couldn’t bear it any longer and gently scooped her up in my arms. It was the first time she had ever allowed me to hold her, but from that moment on, she became my shadow. She also grew much bolder.
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I’ve had cats all my life, but this was the only time I had ever witnessed a cat grieve💔.”
The near death experience of Penny Wittbrodt
Have you ever witnessed unruly behavior in a courtroom? If so, what transpired and how was it handled?
Unruly behavior in real-world courtrooms is rare. Offhand, I can think of only one outburst that I have personally witnessed.
The plaintiff was a former employee of the defendant’s auto body shop. The plaintiff claimed that he had been fired for complaining about unsafe working conditions in the body shop.
At trial, the plaintiff presented evidence of unsafe working conditions that would make your hair stand on end. By the time the plaintiff concluded his case in chief, it was clear to everyone in the courtroom that the defendant was … well, let’s just say that he was one of those people you’d really, really, really, really, really like to throw the book at.
Next, it was the defendant’s turn to testify. For several minutes, he tried to paint the plaintiff as a whiny slacker who was looking for an excuse to get out of doing any work.
Finally, the plaintiff couldn’t stand it any more. He yelled, “I welded in the paint room!”
The judge didn’t say a word.
By that point in the trial, the plaintiff had already established that the defendant was the kind of person who would order an employee to weld in the same room where cars were being spray painted. And everyone was so fed up with the defendant that nobody seemed to care about the plaintiff’s outburst.
Moral of the story: When you order employees to work under conditions that create a risk of blowing up the entire workplace, you shouldn’t be too surprised when one of those employees blows up in the courtroom.
Meet !!! New China’s Gyrocopters Armed With Anti Tank Missiles, is Amazing attack Helicopter
Have you ever been arrested in a foreign country?
In 2014, my wife and I got arrested.
We were going on a 5-day boat tour. 🛥️
From Colombia to Panama through the San Blas Islands.
We had to take a ferry to the departure port early in the morning, so our 20 person group was all at the same hostel the night before.
We took off on the ferry at 6am the following day and quickly learnt something was wrong.
The engines were cut and the loudspeaker rang out . 📣📣📣
👨✈️“We have camera footage of two people stealing from the safe.
We need everyone’s passports and the police will be waiting at the port.”
Everyone was scared. 😱
We were all foreigners, now without passports, trapped on a boat.
As we approached the port. The loudspeaker rang out again 📣
👨✈️”Who was in Room #1?”
That was me and Lexy (my wife).
They spared her, but I was handcuffed as we were dragged away from the group by the Police.
Sitting on the ground of a small cell that morning, we pleaded for hours that it wasn’t us.
Eventually the officer asked:
👮♂️ “How much money do you have in your backpack?”
I knew as I had counted the night before we left Colombia…
👦 “8,236 pesos”
👮♂️ “That’s exactly the amount that was stolen”.
👦 :…………
I sighed a breath of relief as it clicked.
There was no money stolen or camera footage.
We were just getting swindled!
We ‘returned the money’ (bribed the racket) and were released.
When we got back to the group, they had heard the news and the shock had passed.
Everyone had decided to chip in and pay the bribe as a group.
The shared experience brought us together to start the five-day-trip (and gave us a lot to reminisce about 😂).
It made us closer than if it hadn’t even happened.
The experience taught me two things:
Shared trauma creates bonds and strengthens relationships
If you’re getting swindled by a racket, it sucks – but don’t sweat it. They don’t want to hurt you. so just pay the ‘fine’ and get out of there.
What was a loophole that you found and exploited the hell out of?
I was 17, about to turn 18 the next month. I knew I needed to start building credit, but given my only income was about 12 hours/week at $8/hour, not many places were keen on giving me a credit card much less without a co-signer (and I did not want a co-signer since it was my credit so my problem).
I finally found a credit card through Bank of America (my current bank too) that had about a $300 limit. Cool, I finally have a credit card!
As I was grabbing my paperwork and about to leave, the teller says,
“Hold on! I forgot to tell you one thing about this card!”
“Yes?” I answered hesitantly. I had already gone through the wringer looking for a card that I can qualify for, and the last thing I needed was another caveat.
“Your card has a cash-back feature as a promotion!” the teller beamed. “That means if you spend $1.95, we will round up the purchase to $2. $1.95 will go to the purchase, and $0.05 will go into your savings.”
“Okay,” I think, “it’s a way to get people to save more money. But how is this a promotion?”
“And,” the teller continued, “Bank of America will match those funds transferred to your savings account 100% for the the first three months of owning the card!”
Whoops, wrong thing to say to a very ambitious 17-year-old.
I immediately began scheming of ways to exploit this. Heck, I figured all I had to do was change my buying habits. The issue was, what do I purchase that I can really exploit this?
Then it hit me: I can buy gas.
Instead of filling up I would put $1.01 into my tank multiple times. Then Bank of America would match the $0.99 cents transferred to my savings account. Sure, it was tedious, but doing this for an hour I would make way more than when I worked at my actual job.
In the end I wasn’t as disciplined with this method as I would have liked. Frankly I felt very suspicious standing at the gas pump for half an hour.
I wound up making around $150 using this “exploit” (I use quotations because if a 17-year-old can outsmart Bank of America, it had to be designed with this sort of use in mind.).
The funniest moment was when I told the teller at the bank what I had done at the end of the three months. Her face looked something like this:
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Why does the Chinese government ban some products which are not relevant to politics at all?
Originally Answered: Why does the Chinese government ban some products which is not relevant to politics at all?
The biggest category banned by the Chinese government is not politics, but porn, violence, adultery, gambling, and drug-use. Most PG13 movies and games would be judged as “too much breast” or “too violent” by the Chinese standard. Without the ban China would be the biggest market in the world for Japanese or Korean porn.
This is considered to have too much skin and the TV series was taken off air for three days to crop off the cleavage.
If the government doesn’t do anything, some other people in China will complain about the government not doing enough to ban it.
The Chinese government is one giant parental control.
On the other hand, China has less rules/laws/social norms than most other places. There are fewer things you can’t imagine than things that actually occur in China. For example, take funeral. On the one hand, you have people hiring strippers to strip in funeral processions in order to attract a big crowd, like, let’s give the dead a big send-off. No More Funeral Strippers, Chinese Government Announces. On the other side of the spectrum, you have people blasting national anthem for funerals of some random people. China Bans National Anthem at Weddings, Funerals Why would people do this sort of stuff is just beyond me!
What do leaders of countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative hope to get in return from cooperating with China?
According to United Nations data, there are about 30 countries in the world that qualify as developed countries.
But countries like South Korea and Singapore can only be considered entry-level developed countries.
But there are only 7 truly developed countries: the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Italy, and Canada.
They are also called G7.
From the end of World War II to the present, developed countries around the world have become richer, and poor countries have become poorer.
Apart from a few examples, such as South Korea and Singapore, almost no other country has gone from poverty to wealth, and none of the large countries have done so.
It stands to reason that during the 70 years of peace, people in every country have been working hard, wealth should naturally grow and accumulate, and poor countries should gradually become richer.
But why does the list of rich countries almost never change?
Are Vietnamese lazier than Americans? Or are Malaysians dumber than British people?
I think neither.
There is something wrong with the rules of the game in this world.
The rules of the game set by rich countries are like a wall that keeps poor countries out.
They can plunder the wealth of poor countries without sending colonial troops.
This means that the rewards that young people in poor countries can get from working hard in the mines for a year are not as good as young people in developed countries from a simple transaction in stocks.
An elderly person in a poor country who has to rummage through garbage dumps for a month cannot compare with what an elderly person in a rich country can get from queuing for ten minutes at a relief station.
This is a problem with the rules of the game. Seventy years of experience show that under the current rules of the game, it is difficult for poor countries to rise.
The existing rules are like a rich country riding in an SUV and seeing a poor country struggling in the desert about to die of thirst, dropping a bottle of water: Hey, I saved you, so you have to work for me for a year. It’s a job, take it or die.
In order to survive, poor countries have to accept that. It is the rules of the game.
In the past, the world had no choice other than the existing rules of the game.
Now, China has given a new option. The Chinese promise to help you dig a well on the condition that they share the output of the well.
Although whether this new option will work, no one knows yet. But any government that wants its country to improve will try to seize this opportunity.
The rich countries will shout, Hey: China’s wells are poisonous, don’t be fooled!
who cares?
Because while they are shouting, they are not giving another well to the poor countries. They hope to continue handing out bottled water and continue the old game.
EMBARASSING! Women Score Higher In EVERY CATEGORY
Why are all the ancient Roman buildings in ruins like they were abandoned? Weren’t there still people living there in Medieval times?
Yes, Rome continued to be inhabited after it’s final “fall” in 476 C.E.
However, Rome depended on its massive Empire to provide it with food and wealth, with that gone, the city was unsustainable. Once home to a million people, within a century the population had fallen to about 10% of that. For the most part, there simply weren’t enough people to maintain the grandeur of the city. Within two centuries, most people who lived in Rome had no idea what the buildings used to be used for (like the Coliseum)
Rome’s also in an area that gets earthquakes, and between the fall of Rome and modern times there were a few quite substantial ones. No-one is going to bother repairing structures that collapse. In fact, by the 19th century, most of the city’s old marble was being ground up for cement.
A good modern parallel is Detroit, Michigan. Yes, about 600,000 people still live there, but the city used to hold over 1.8 million people. Buildings got abandoned. Some were torn down. Some are still there. Some of the old buildings have been restored to their former glory. But there are still a lot of places in the city that are crumbling and abandoned.
What was Elvis Presley’s’ position on the Vietnam War?
Initially, Elvis believed, as many did, that the Vietnam War was an honorable war between good and evil. But, as the years dragged on and the Vietnam casualties were shown every night on TV it became clear to Elvis, and millions, that Americans were being lied to. That the mentality of “we captured this piece of land = victory in war” was unattainable.
The Vietnam War divided America. On one side was the let’s support our troops and win this war and on the other side was we should get out of this war…now.
Hence, Elvis wanted us out of Vietnam as it was unwinnable
Elvis’ infamous flight to Washington DC, in December of 1970which was completely out of character for Elvis as he went alone and on the spur of the moment without anyone knowing other than Sonny West (Red West’s cousin) and Jerry Schilling, where Elvis met with President Richard Nixon and there are photographs of them together at the White House.
On the plane ride to Washington DC Elvis was talking to them, known then as stewardesses who were enthralled by Elvis a young man in uniform stood up to ask for water. With Elvis having honorably served in the US Army from March 1958 to March 1960 he was taken aback by the tortuous look on the man’s face with his head down barely making eye contact.
Elvis asked him his name. Asked him about where he was headed after landing and the man replied he was going to propose to his girlfriend of 2 years. Elvis was careful not to bring up anything about the war and concentrated on the young man who is fighting for his country. Elvis gave the young man an autograph, a ring off his hand, and asked Sonny West how much money they had on them. Sonny West, in Red Wests and. or Joe Esposito’s absence, handled bringing money and replied “Five thousand dollars” OR five hundred dollars depending on the source. Elvis said to hand it over to him. Elvis immediately went back to the young man and said “I wish I could give you more but perhaps this will benefit you and your loved ones”. Elvis then had Jerry write down the phone numbers at Graceland and in California and told the man if he ever needed anything to please let Elvis know. The soldier was speechless and Elvis told him to take care and may God bless you and keep you safe.
Elvis then put on his sunglasses not because of the sun but to hide his tears from everyone. Elvis was deeply moved by the soldier as it represented thousands of young men who went off to war and either never came back or came back being spit upon called war criminals and had mental and physical harm/nightmares.
Elvis knew that the last war America fought, the Korean War should have taught America that either you overwhelm the enemy with bombs and/or troops OR don’t go to war. What Elvis saw of Vietnam when he met Richard Nixon was a quagmire. A never-ending war. Elvis asked President Nixon about the Vietnam War and if the troops had everything they needed. President Nixon said yes. Even Nixon would be lied to by General William Westmoreland and America would learn of Westmoreland’s lies, at a later date, and be horrified. Also, Elvis knew that the rich and powerful were able to keep their children out of the war and/or those young men in college were able to stay out of the war and adversely affected the poor, middle class, and without political connections were sent to war. It was wrong then and it is wrong now.
Elvis loved America but he came to hold the opinion that the war should end and our troops to come home. less than 3 years after meeting President Nixon the President ordered all troops home. Elvis’ heart went out to those who died, were disabled, and their family/loved ones.
Take care
My Wife Has Known For 8 YEARS That Her Best Friend’s Husband Punched My Son And NEVER Told Me!
Who is the most dangerous leader today?
This is Larry Fink.
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He’s a guy most people have never heard of, and that’s entirely on purpose. While he may not be super well-known, he’s the CEO & Founder of what may be a company that quite literally owns the world: BlackRock.
BlackRock is a lot more powerful than people know. They control and own:
Most US Banks (such as Bank of America and Chase Bank).
Major oil companies (like Exxon and Chevron).
All of the major pharmaceutical companies in the world (such as Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson).
Most of the mainstream media (such as CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC).
The supervision of nearly 10% of all stocks traded worldwide.
They quite literally hold a slice of every pie in the world. In fact, they have a whopping $10 trillion in assets — nearly half America’s total GDP.
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BlackRock is so influential that the US and Chinese Governments even relied on the company to escape recessions.
Being the Founder & CEO of such a mega-conglomerate, Fink is now quite powerful as well. He currently sits on both the Council on Foreign Relations and the World Economic Forum.
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In the words of Henry Kissinger, “Whoever controls the money controls the world”. No other company in history has had as much influence as BlackRock.
The fact that BlackRock is a major shareholder in dozens of major companies (Twitter, Amazon, Google, and Facebook, just to name a few) is very important because it means that for any of these companies to decide on company policy, they must now also consult with BlackRock before doing so.
BlackRock’s influence over 90% of the mainstream media might also be why you’ve probably never heard of them (and why most people haven’t).
Controlling media is a very important step in BlackRock continuing to extend its control over the world, because if everyone knew the consequences of them holding nearly $10 trillion in assets, questions would start to be raised.
Such an unchecked amount of power (especially under the wing of Fink being the sole company owner) means that the guy has unparalleled amounts of power over the world that we may yet to truly understand.
7 MINS AGO: China’s Yuan JUST SURPASSED the US Dollar… & U.S. Is SCRAMBLING!
What is a “pump and dump” scheme?
I live near a fruit shop where all they sell is mostly oranges for 1$ per orange. They open at 10 AM and they close at 11 AM, and usually sell around 60 oranges per day, which means regular clients and the owner are used to selling an average of one orange per minute at 1$ per orange.
I am a scammer, and I want to take advantage of the fruit shop by manipulating the orange market of my neighbourhood. This is how I can do so:
First, I will buy 5 oranges at 1$ per orange and store them in the fridge.
The next day I will hire 10 slackers who have not much to do – they will be my “pump group”. I’ll pay them some money to go to the fruit shop at 10:15 AM, which is the time where the street is the busiest, so that many people can see what they do. They will each buy one or two oranges, but they’ll do so all at once and with a visible sense of urgency. This way, two things will happen:
Fear of missing out (FOMO): People in the proximities of the fruit shop will feel like not purchasing oranges has a high opportunity cost. In other words, they will believe that if a group of people are rushing to buy oranges, then the deal at hand must be too good to pass up.
Demand surplus: The shop owner senses a sudden demand surge, indicating that his oranges might be underpriced. He thinks their their market cap is lower than their real value because all of a sudden he has more customers than he can handle. This forces the shop owner to immediately raise the price of the oranges. Now, the price is not 1$ per orange, but 3$ per orange.
As orange prices keep on rising and people start to queue up outside the store, the price keeps on rising until 11 AM, the closing time. At 10:55, the shop owner raises the price one last time: 6$ per orange. At that moment, I come down from my house, triumphantly showing off my basket filled with the 5 oranges I had bought at 1$ per orange. I sit next to the shop and sell the oranges at their current market cap, 6$ per orange. I have invested 5$ in oranges and 10$ in hiring my pump group, and I have made 30$ selling the oranges – which is a return on investment (ROI) of 200%.
But the next day, people exit the ecstasy and delusions induced by my fraudulent scheme, and they figure out that they have spent 3–6 $ in buying oranges whose real value is, in fact, just 1$. The price quickly falls back down to 1$, and those in possession of the oranges realise their assets were only artificially valuable for a short period of time, losing their money to me.
This story contains themes or mentions of physical violence, gore, or abuse.
October 30th, 1938… It was supposed to be a harmless radio broadcast, or so they say. None of us really knew at the time. The blackout came without warning, cutting off the radio’s descriptions of an extraterrestrial ship which had just landed in Grovers Mill, New Jersey. As far as we could put together, aliens had just come down from space, and shortly after, we’d lost all power. The assumptions were widespread, resulting in a mass panic that had struck the city of Mobile, Alabama within minutes. A once beautiful city, now suffering the same fate as every other major metropolitan center in our country. Riots, looting, genocide, suicide, patricide, and every other ‘cide you can think of. It was just supposed to be a harmless radio broadcast. So why then, did so many people have to die?My memories of that night still plague me like a demented song whose melody haunts your every thought. I remember the beads of sweat rolling down my daddy’s balding head, barely illuminated over his dark skin, yet only visible when we’d passed under the streetlights. His fingertips were nearly white, crushing the little bones of my hand as he pulled me behind him, while desperately gripping his grand-daddy’s six-shooter. Our bodies jerked from side to side, weaving between overturned cars and maniacal crowds. The smell of burnt rubber and seared flesh wafted through the humid air, forcing me to hold back the vomit that curled inside my throat. Flames spread over the passing rooftops, and billowed from every window.I still remember the bodies whose shadows glimpsed the fire on the way down before impact. The child was first. Just a girl, like me, silently gliding through the air. I felt her thud vibrate through the concrete. The woman was next, unable to mask her terror through scratchy cries. Would my mother have done the same to me? My daddy told me not to look, but how do you not? His pull had to guide my steps as I stared at those corpses who swam in an expanding pool of their own blood, and the strangers who later ran over them without care or concern.Several minutes passed. The heat was scorching our faces, and the rough terrain was ripping the blisters off my bare feet. We thought we could actually make it, having come this far, but our hope fell short the moment we saw the slobbering jowls of starving lions ahead. A group of young men, their skin pale white even amidst the darkness, with bleached yellow hair that contrasted the blood-stained letterman jackets. Roll Tide. My daddy jerked me to his side violently, bouncing the sights of his pistol between them. They laughed, taunting him as they circled around us, drawing my daddy’s grip tighter. I glanced up at his face which fell sullen, his shoulders dropping in a sort of defeat as a single tear mixed with the river of sweat on his cheek.He nodded, meeting my eyes, and let a single word slip from his lips. Run. I hesitated, until a violent push thrusted me forward. The momentum strained my balance, but after finding my footing I broke into a full sprint. The man in front of me fell, and then the man beside him. I saw the holes open their chests and felt the splatter of warm liquid on my face, but I never heard the shots. I couldn’t tell you how many bullets my daddy got off before their rusted pipes and rubber soles drained him of his final breaths.I just kept running, the minutes passing like hours, creeping through the shadows to avoid the cries and despair of the dangers around me. Eventually, when fear got the best of me, I dove into a pile of trash I’d found which was stacked against a brick building at the corner of some dark alley. I crawled deep inside, befriending the scurrying rats and a potent aroma of rotting food. My body curled into itself as I desperately held my palms over my ears. I thought I could drown out the noise, but it took all night for the screams to eventually stop. I was too scared to leave, so I let the fear keep me there for over two days, until the knots of hunger were so unbearable that I had to move, unable to keep feeding on the molded bones and maggots which carpeted my dry, split lips. When I’d finally carried myself out of the trash and into the street, the maggots and bones seemed a welcome treat. The streets had grown flesh, its bones poking out from the sidewalks, and the buildings had all but burnt away. With nowhere to go, and a belly wrought with hunger, I just started walking. It’s all I could do.
* * *
I toss, unable to find sleep. It’s been nearly thirty years since that night, and the shades of the past still drop by unannounced from time to time. I read a quote once, while sifting through a half-burnt book I’d discovered on the side of a desolate highway. It said, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Well, that may be true, but we certainly found a way to destroy her in one. We still don’t know what knocked out the power that night, or why it happened to coincide with a harmless radio show about an alien invasion. Some say it was divine intervention, that God wanted to set back the clock to teach us a lesson. Maybe that’s true, but what happened that night didn’t set back the clock, it destroyed it altogether. Without electricity, we’d lost all sense of time, and had no communication systems to connect us. The number of minds who understood the science behind that craft were already slim, and thanks to the impulsivity of humanity, most ended up dying helplessly during the chaos, while several others were publicly executed for being part of the so-called conspiracy – giving up the world to invading space-folk.
Whether it was divine intervention or not, we lost ourselves to ignorance. Parents killing children, children killing their parents, religious cults killing themselves, crazed individuals running the streets killing each other, as they did my daddy. Every city was a victim, filled with so many bodies that within only a few weeks, the diseases started to spread rapidly. As if that night wasn’t devastating enough, millions more began falling ill and dying. We had few doctors, and less medicine, with no way of knowing which diseases were running wild. Still without communications, groups of survivors had banded together to increase their odds. It would be almost five years before reliable communication systems were set up in the big cities, and almost twice as long before the smaller colonies were gifted the same privilege.
Once we could communicate, we began to piece together the mystery of what happened. No one had any answers, at least none that made any sense. The closest answer that carried some semblance of scientific evidence came from a German scientist who somehow made his way over from Europe to meet with the former President of our divided states – which were now governed independently, each colony providing its own security forces and laws. After explaining how it wasn’t just our country who’d lost power, but the whole world, at least from what he’d gathered during his travels, he tried to propose that it was the sun who was the culprit for the electronics loss. A solar event, he called it. His evidence was slim, and only theoretical, based on weapons research they’d been doing in Germany under some leader named Hitler, but it made more sense than the non-existent aliens who wiped out our power just to disguise themselves as humans so they could take over our planet – which was the running theory up to that point.
Personally, I believe that scientist was on to something. I can’t prove it, because I’m not a genius, but when I discovered this place, I’d found stacks of old newspapers, many of the final headlines speaking about that Hitler guy and rumors of the advanced scientific research which were coming out of Germany before the blackout. In fact, I’ve found a lot of interesting things down here, including hundreds of stories, poems, and encyclopedias, conveniently organized and laid out on dozens of wooden shelves that line the entire room, just begging for someone to find them. Then again, if someone had, they wouldn’t be here anymore.
The first time I saw a library burned to the ground was a few months after the big cities had established their new communications systems. When copies of that fateful radio broadcast were found amongst the ruins, we stored them in order to provide a name to the man who’d killed an entire nation overnight. Orson Wells became the most hated figure in our recollected history, more despised than Ghangis Khan or Joseph Stalin. As soon as knowledge spread that his broadcast was based off one of his novels, War of the Worlds, a nationwide directive was ordered – the destruction of all literature. The colonies believed that if one book could destroy a country, then new safeguards must be put in place to avoid another incident. They claimed that books were necessary, of course, but new guidelines were needed to regulate their information. Since there wasn’t enough manpower to critique every literary work released up to that point, they decided to institute a law banning all books printed before the year 1938. In other words, a clean slate.
Every library and bookstore within our borders were sought out and set to flames. The amount of knowledge lost was devastating, which made it all the more surprising when I found this treasure trove underneath the floorboards of an abandoned house just outside of what used to be Fayetteville, Arkansas – now one of the largest black-only communities in the country. This basement held the clues to our past, and I knew that someone had to protect it for that reason alone. Since I’ve always preferred solitude anyways, I made it my home, and for the last fourteen years, while the states have relied on the nationwide education radio broadcasts or one of only thirteen books to have been published in almost thirty years, I’ve relied on these classics to educate me – which up until now, had been a soothing thought. Unfortunately, despite my “advantageous” education, I still failed to avoid a basic mistake that resulted in the blood of two more men staining my hands. I’m so tired.
I force myself to my feet, realizing that sleep is no longer on the table. I give a quick glance to the Anti-Orson Wells poster across the room which I’d conveniently stolen and put up a few years ago. It’s an irony in this kind of place, which adds a daily dose of humor to my mornings. According to the weekly broadcast I’d caught in town on my last visit, today was the day they are reinstating a new calendar system. We’re bringing in the dawn of a new age, they said. We no longer need to fear our history, because our history starts today!
Nice tagline, but it’s all a joke if you ask me. We’re supposed to be relishing in what should be 1967, yet our technology has barely surpassed the day we lost it, probably because it took a decade’s worth of negotiations before the states would finally work together. We have no more movies, no books, no fairy tales to teach our young. No princesses in need of help, or princes coming to save the day. No knights to protect us from dragons. No Shakespearean poetry to teach us about love, vengeance, or ambition. No whales to hunt down, or rabbit holes to fall into. No more God, science, or philosophy. They say our history begins today, but our history goes back thousands of years, and people chose to let it go because of one broadcast, which was prematurely cutoff before it could announce that it was only fiction, aired at the worst possible time.
I stroll over to the small window that’s carved into the concrete above. Peering through the vines and into the feint stars of the night sky, I wonder if my daddy’s up there somewhere. Can he see me? Is he proud of who I became? Would he be proud of what I’d just done? Or what I’ve had to do in the past? The moon peeks around the corner of the glass, drawing my attention. Would we have found our way to its surface by now? Could we have gazed back from that bright ocean towards an Earth whose face still remains a mystery to us? A shifting blanket breaks my focus.
My eyes hesitantly find the girl across the room, wearily lying on the floor. The gashes in her feet have stopped bleeding, and the bruises around her mahogany wrists seem less defined. I couldn’t tell by her words, because there were none before she passed out, only the frantic sounds of footsteps above before stumbling head-first down my staircase. I was so careless to have left the hatch open. I know better, and now, the two men pursuing her have donated their flesh to feed the insects outside because I slipped up. And worse, I must decide whether to add one more dish to the feast, a living witness to my illegal possessions sleeping only a few meters away.
If she wakes, she becomes my walking-executioner, holding a gun to my head with every breath of her existence. For all I know, this is one of the last collections like this to exist. When our country decided to burn away our history, the world followed, seeing some poisoned sense of reason behind the act. If a thousand holes with a thousand books still exist in these divided states, that’s still a thousand times less than what should be, and I am the one who came upon this house, meaning that I’m the one who God has chosen to protect this particular Holy Grail. I cannot take that lightly, nor can I let the impulses of a teenage girl erase what little stories we have left to rely on. It’s too risky, because I know how she has been conditioned. Every youth of the new world are narcs, squealing on those with a differing opinion or desire – basically anyone who wishes to return us to how things were before. No, I can’t trust her.
I spot my knife, sitting on the edge of the nightstand just beyond her body. My shadow creeps across the wall as I move through the dying incandescence of the candle in the distance. My feet are careful not to bump anything on the way over, their familiarity with the terrain being an unexpected advantage. Reaching the nightstand, her face comes into view, possessed by dreams which force a shuddering inside her eyelids. She’s gone, far away from this place. If I do it now, she’ll fade permanently into that dreamland, without suffering the terror of watching her reality disappear before her eyes. Just one quick stroke to the back of the neck and it’ll all be over.
I silently slip my knife from its sheath, then carefully step over her body. Her hair is parted down the middle, one side resting over a drooping shoulder, the other falling away towards the floor. The ridges of her spine reveal signs of malnutrition, but also deliver a clear view of the sweet spot my knife blade needs, as if God were granting me permission to carry out this saving grace. The edge of the steel hovers over her skin. I shift my weight forward, gripping the handle tighter, and as the nerves begin to fire my muscles into action, I prepare myself for a struggle.
The blade jerks as it enters, catching the tissues between the bones, but my force is still enough to separate the spinal cord. There was no movement, no fight left in her muscles. Her body accepted its final breath as peacefully as it fell asleep. My gaze remained fixed on the failing light of the candle, an eventual breath of relief falling over my lips. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen, and by the looks of it, had been the prisoner of those two pigs who were chasing her down. From her markings, she was probably their slave, or toy. I can’t imagine the trauma they put her through, or the courage it must have taken to escape them. But that’s not a good enough reason. Not for me.
I know how this world works. You give it an inch, and it finds a way to hang you with it. She’s not the only one who’s been used as a rag then discarded when you’re no longer useful. The years following the fall were full of senseless murders, rape, theft, and torture. She’s only a teenager. She doesn’t remember when the rules were made by the evilest of men and women, all of which wanting their piece of the pie, with many of them transforming into the shining lights of hope that now run these divided states. This world isn’t fair, it never was. For those who remember, they’d understand why this girl is bleeding out on my floor, and why I must protect these treasures around me. She’s not the first life I’ve taken. Hell, I’ve lost count to be honest. But she won’t be the one who takes mine, nor the one who burns this house to the ground with our history still inside. I’ve made sure of that…
Well, I guess I better get the shovel. I need some sleep.
Man Hit By Truck; Shown His Future And The Purpose Of Life During Shocking (NDE)
Peppery Steak over Rice
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Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1 pound round steak
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 large onions, sliced about 1/4 inch thick
1 green bell pepper, cut into thin strips
1 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips
2 cups hot cooked rice
Instructions
Sliced meat very thin. Place into a bowl, then sprinkle with oregano, chili powder, salt and pepper. Toss to coat, then set aside.
Heat olive oil over low heat in a large skillet.
Add onions. Increase heat to high for about 2 minutes, then reduce heat to medium and stir. Cook onions, stirring occasionally, until done to desired taste.
Add peppers; increase heat to high and cook about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Remove peppers and onions to a bowl.
Reheat pan over high heat; add steak and spread it in a single layer. Cook, without stirring, until the meat browns well, about 2 minutes. Stir to cook through.
Mix with peppers and onions.
Serve over rice.
Who are the scariest people in history?
Theodore loved Liz and her daughter Molly with all his heart, but the relationship was compromised in the darker corners of life. They had lived different lives before they met, and even when they lived partly together, there always was Liz’s feeling that Theodore still had some hidden life apart.
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Sometimes he would be distant and absent, and the stark contrast with his usual very passionate and loving ways couldn’t be bigger. As if there was a second Theodore inside. And then he would disappear for a couple of days, and when he resurfaced (he always did), he was exhausted and depressed, taking long naps in which he wanted to escape the cruel world.
The weird thing was that Liz had started noticing that whenever Theodore disappeared for a couple of days, one or two women would disappear as well somewhere in the US, and in hindsight always in the exact same state where Theodore happened to be (for no good reason). But she never asked him the questions, because she knew what the answers were (and that he never would tell).
One time, she found a bag filled with women’s clothes in her apartment, and on another occasion, she found plaster of Paris in his desk drawer that he claimed he had taken when he was working in a medical supply house.
But when two young women disappeared at Lake Sammamish, Liz kept thinking about the cast the guy was wearing who was thought to have abducted and killed both women — “what a perfect weapon it would make for clubbing someone on the head.”
And needless to say, Theodore was nowhere around Liz’s place when the Lake Sammamish disappearings happened.
After his final arrest in Florida (in 1978), Theodore confessed to Liz over the phone that he was “controlled by a force he couldn’t contain.” In the days prior to the arrest, he had killed three women and disabled three further women for the rest of their lives:
“The force would just consume me. Like one night, I was walking by the campus and I followed this sorority girl. I didn’t want to follow her. I didn’t do anything but follow her and that’s how it was. I’d be out late at night and follow people like that … I’d try not to, but I’d do it anyway.”
The last murder victim was Kimberley Leach, and she had been tortured, abused and killed, and left in an abandoned pig farrowing shed. At the age of 14.
In his final days before being executed, Theodore Bundy finally admitted to having killed at least 30 women, committed acts of necrophilia with many of the corpses whom he hid on distant sites (until putrefaction made a halt to that), collected some of their body parts to further engage with in his (or Liz’s) apartment, and much much more.
But he still loved Liz Kloepfer and her daughter Molly till the very end.
Those are the people that scare me the most: the very monsters who are human beings at the same time, perfectly able to hide under their human nature —
And entirely invisible to the rest of us.
The Chinese 4-nanometer chiplet technology breakthrough in 2023
As TSMC has suffered setbacks in the research and development of advanced processes, the global chip industry has realized that the research and development of advanced chip processes is becoming increasingly difficult, and this path is becoming increasingly difficult to advance. Therefore, chip companies have been exploring new technical directions to improve chip performance, and chiplet technology is one of them. In this regard, Chinese chips have made significant progress.
Among the Chinese chip companies, JCET Group长电科技 is one of the top three packaging and testing companies in the world and also the most technologically powerful chip packaging and testing company in China. It recently announced that it has successfully developed 4-nanometer chiplet technology with a packaging area of up to 1500mm2 and achieved system-level packaging, ranking first in the world.
With the help of the advanced packaging technology, China can use mature processes to produce chips with leading performance. By packaging chips with different processes together, it can achieve 4-nanometer performance, thereby successfully circumventing the current limitations of EUV lithography machines on China’s development of advanced processes.
The Chinese breakthrough in chiplet technology has also been recognized by American chip companies. Recently, news indicated that another domestic packaging and testing company, Tongfu Microelectronics 通富微电, has successfully mass-produced 5-nanometer chiplet technology, with obvious technological advantages. Because its technology is advanced enough, even the American chip giant AMD has recognized its technological advantages and has therefore given 80% of its chip orders to Tongfu Microelectronics, and the contract period is as long as several years.
American chip companies with such advanced technology have all entrusted chip packaging to Tongfu Microelectronics, which shows that Chinese chip companies are already sufficiently advanced in chiplet technology.
The breakthrough in chiplet technology has undoubtedly opened a door for Chinese chips. The world’s leading chiplet technology will help the Chinese chip industry to solve the obstacles of chip technology and develop advanced chips. The performance-leading chips announced earlier by many chip companies such as Loongson are inseparable from domestic chiplet technology. Processors and memory chips produced with domestic 14nm technology are packaged together to reduce the communication time between various chips, which can achieve the purpose of improving performance.
Of course, China’s chip performance improvement is not limited to chiplet technology. China is also promoting the development of quantum chip and photonic chip technology. The Chinese Academy of Sciences has released 3-nanometer photonic transistor technology. Such advanced technology will be able to bypass the limitations of EUV lithography machines, but it will take time for photonic chips to be commercialized, and chiplet chip technology is a more realistic technology at present.
The fact that China has made breakthroughs in many chip technologies shows that many of the US tactics are gradually becoming ineffective. With the joint efforts of Chinese chips, China will soon be able to break the shackles of EUV lithography machines and may even gain a technological lead in the chip industry in the next few years, completely breaking the US monopoly on chip technology.
Chinese chips are beginning to burst out with unlimited potential. The Chinese are constantly creating their own chip technology system. After establishing an independent technology system, Chinese chips will surely be invincible.
China’s Diplomacy, Geopolitics & Defense
Godfree Roberts
Diplomacy
Leaders from 54 African countries with 30% of the world’s population attended FOCAC. Xi: “We have together built roads, railways, schools, hospitals, industrial parks, and special economic zones. These projects have changed the lives and destiny of many people”. He committed another $50 billion to continue the work and canceled all tariffs for 33 African countries. The effect will be increased exports from Africa to China.
The UN General Assembly adopted two Chinese resolutins: The first is that July 6 will be “World Rural Development Day” (America has always been hostile to development in foreign countries and China is seeking to have development recognized as a human right). The second, the “United Nations Games” resolution, calls for convening the UN Games annually and invites relevant stakeholders to make voluntary contributions to a trust fund dedicated to the Games (a shot across the bow of the corrupt, US-controlled IOC).
Geopolitics
The United States is losing ground in important parts of Asia. “For these poor but growing countries, the American mortgage crisis was a staggering affair: why give poor people high-interest mortgages when they know they won’t be able to pay them back? Morality at zero. The irresponsibility of the United States was soon joined by that of Europe, so slow to react. In truth, it was China’s massive stimulus policy that pulled the world out of recession. The emergence of the BRICs rebounds from this double Western irresponsibility.”
300 German companies in China criticize the slow visa process for Chinese employees. In a letter to German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, “ the qualification of Chinese employees in Germany and joint project development are crucial to the success of German companies. We are concerned that there are still difficulties in providing Chinese employees of German companies with visas for Germany in a timely manner”.
BRICS lays the foundation for decoupling from US agriculture with the development of a post-American international economic system. This includes a grain exchange, new logistic centers, transportation infrastructure, development banks, insurance systems, native technologies and digital platforms, de-dollarisation, and the abandonment of the SWIFT transaction system. The US weaponisation of trade will continue to encourage the rest of the world to reduce their dependence on the US and find more reliable economic partners.
The CIA was attempting to set up hundreds of paramilitary officers in North Korea. What struck him as a spectacular secret was a CIA cover organization called the SEA Supply Company. In a few years, this group would be training police forces in Thailand, but in the immediate term Smith discovered that SEA Supply was involved in planning an invasion of China through the CIA Station in Taiwan with the help of the Nationalist Chinese (Kuomintang or KMT), stationed in Burma. General Stilwell’s deputy, Desmond FitzGerald, ran the operation, which had the goal of invading China from Burma through Yunnan province.
Egypt operates 220 F-16s with no beyond visual range air-to-surface weapons whatsoever, and Washington offered Cairo the upgraded F-16V, but the cost was too high. The U.S. sold 66 F-16Vs to Taiwan for $8 billion, or $121 million per jet. By contrast, Pakistan signed a $1.4 billion deal with China in 2009 to buy 36 J-10Bs at $39 million each. The J-10C offers superior combat capabilities to the enhanced F-16V at a comparable cost. The J-10C can carry the PL-15 300 km range missile.
USN fanboys become furious when I point out that silly FONOPs in the South China Sea are under constant surveillance and can be hit by hypersonic missiles from multiple directions. FONOPs symbolism works for people ignorant about modern weapon systems, satellite coverage, etc. In other words, how a 21st century naval war (which no one has ever seen) might be fought. PRC remote sensing capability is now very advanced, and they have developed a 10B parameter transformer specifically for processing remote sensing data: Having a 300 remote sensing sat constellation like Jilin-1 that can see object move w/ 0.5m precision & able to revisit location every 5 minutes. How much data has been collected from silly FONOPs that was then used to train the remote sensing transformer?
China’s VT-4 main battle tank has successfully completed assessments in Algeria, The VT-4 boasts very high levels of mobility, with its 1,300 hp diesel engine ensuring a high power-weight ratio. The tank benefits from torsion bar suspension, an integrated hydraulic transmission system, and automatic gear transmission for steering and acceleration. It uses an autoloader allowing its weight to be reduced considerably and its crew cut from four to just three. The tank uses a 125mm main gun, while Japanese and South Korean tanks use 120mm guns. The tank uses composite armor and FY-4 explosive reactive armor for protection, equivalent to 700mm of protection.
The first Yulan-class landing helicopter assault (LHA) ship, the Type 076, will be the world’s largest amphibious assault ship, 260 m. x 52 m, or 13,500 m2—the area of three U.S. football fields, considerably larger than the U.S. America-class LHA and Japanese Izumo-class. Its electric catapult will launch fixed-wing aircraft, unique among LHAs, and an aircraft elevator on each side for lifting aircraft from the internal hangar to the flight deck. The 076 may launch fixed-wing aircraft, or at least fixed-wing combat UAVs, putting the Type 076 in a class of its own. It features a floodable well deck on its stern, for launching amphibious vehicles for “ship-to-shore” operations.
Egypt placed its first order for Chinese J-10C fourth generation fighters, following its admission to BRICS. The J-10C is far more capable than any fighter in the Israeli fleet other than its two squadrons of F-35s, with large scale acquisitions potentially forcing Israel to expand F-35 orders and to invest in more capable air to air missiles for its aircraft.
What are the most common misconceptions Westerners have about daily life in China?
Many of them are mentally fixed. As such they saw something in the past and think nothing has changed.
It doesn’t look like that anymore. There’s been significant progress. Some think of 1960s, 1950s is similar to modern day China. In the UK I remember some retirees they were talking as if Chiang Kai Shek or Mao was still alive. They’ve been dead 40+ years.
It’s like these videos of American schools in the 1980s-1990s. It doesn’t look like that anymore. The children got heavier and wider.
Barring visiting themselves they often don’t see it and have no reason to change their point of view. Add in the absolute lies told by western media and the paid comments by the western world (UK has 77th brigade) and censors western media to block out alternative views.
A realistic picture can only be found by going there and looking yourself.
So what’s the problem?
You ever read Orwell’s 1984? Prisoners are paraded around before their ‘disposal’. Winston surmises that if the average prole managed to talk to the prisoners they’d realise they were far more alike than they were told.
So what’s the problem? People can go there and go see for themselves!
The western world has travel advisories against China.
This means people can’t get travel insurance.
My dad keep a house in the UK. Before he had cancer travel insurance from the UK to HK/CHN (he sometimes flies in via Guangzhou airport or Shenzhen) travel insurance was insignificant as a cost. He could get travel insurance full medical evacuation type for £20 per trip or £110 a year.
He got cancer. He’s much better now. His travel insurance single trip is £300 and refused quote for a year. This is to Europe.
The travel advisories and alerts to China mean that you simply can’t get travel insurance to China at all. So the only people who go are the adventurous younger ones who travel without insurance.
I mean the USA does not look like this everywhere. I know this as do many people know this,
But guess what? The USA is denying many visas to Chinese people, so guess what? Chinese people can’t see that the USA doesn’t look like the above.
Why does The Art of War say to never put your enemy in a corner?
It will dodectuple the enemy’s resolve and will to fight.
This should be self-evident to any officer. Always leave a surrounded enemy an escape route. The reason is that a drowning man will grab even a straw – a surrounded enemy will grab it, and a retreat will quickly turn into a rout. The enemy can be slain at will along that road while he routs.
But what happens if you cut that way to safety off? You effectively put him in the Terrain of Death. The enemy will now know his only chance is to fight – and he will fight with a terrible resolve. This is effectively the inverse of burning the bridges behind – the enemy is now fully committed and will fight to the last man.
This is exactly why the British Army did not close the Falaise pocket in Normandy 1944, but left deliberately a gap out. The surrounded Germans routed through it, and by doing so, the Royal Air Force bombed and strafed them at will. The Germans left behind all their vehicles and heavy equipment, and their morale was crushed.
Now suppose what would have happened if the British had closed the gap – and the route to safety? Yes, the Germans would have fought like cornered rats, with all the desperation of a besieged enemy, and caused immense losses to the Allies. Resolving the battle would have taken weeks, perhaps months, and given Germans time for a counterattack.
What is an incident that changed your life?
When we saw tears in my Dad’s eyes :- I still remember the incident, when my dad came home with tears in his eyes. At that time we (my elder brother and I) were in class 9, we asked dad, what happened? He said “I want to see you both as successful people, just focus on your studies.”
Later we came to know due to some family issue, my uncle hit my dad.
We were not good students at that point of time. In class 9, my brother scored 40/100 in Mathematics, while I scored 48/100. Next year in 10th U.P board exams, my brother scored 88/100 and I got 78/100 in mathematics. We both passed with first division.
After that, we never looked back.
12 years later –
Today I am working as a Senior Software Engineer in a leading Telecom company in Berlin, Germany and my elder brother is working as production manager in Shenzhen, China.
Yes, happy ending. 🙂
Edit 1 : Someone asked, how are my parents now & how are we taking care of them?
My parents are pretty good & we are taking care of them very well, soon they will be visiting me. Before moving to Germany, I worked in Malaysia with a leading American MNC. When I had to move to Germany, I called my Mom and Dad to Malaysia, I took them to Singapore and Cambodia too. This was the first time they traveled by plane. 🙂
My daughter helped me meet my affair at our house, but then the worst case scenario happened
Oh, these stories of mistakes and how they evolve are interesting and depressing at the same time.
Do you have a meal that your mother used to make, that you haven’t had in years?
I do.
How about “City Chicken”?
City chicken is an American entrée consisting of cubes of meat, typically pork, which have been placed on a wooden skewer (approximately 4–5 inches long), then fried and/or baked. Depending on the recipe, they may be breaded. Despite the name of the dish, city chicken almost never contains chicken.
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History
A similar dish once known as “mock chicken” was described as early as 1908. The first references to city chicken appeared in newspapers and cookbooks just prior to and during the Depression Era in a few cities such as Pittsburgh. City chicken typically has cooks using meat scraps to fashion a makeshift drumstick from them by skewering meat chunks. It was a working-class food item. During the Depression, cooks used pork or in many cases veal because it was then cheaper than chicken in many cities, especially meat packing centers such as Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Louisville, and Pittsburgh where such cuts were more readily available than chicken.[6]
Sometimes cooks would grind the meat and use a drumstick-shaped mold to form the ground meat around a skewer. One such mold, manufactured by AMPCO/BKI, was labeled chicken sans volaille (without poultry).
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The dish is still popular in the Binghamton, NY, area, where at the turn of last century along with the growth of factories (especially EJ, cigar companies, Kilmer, etc.) the town was supplied with workers from immigrant communities abroad as well as from the coal mines of PA, stone quarries of northern NY, etc. Many or most of these were from more rural areas where farming for personal use to supplement their jobs was common (i.e. small vegetable gardens, hogs and chickens). In the tenement and row houses in Binghamton/JC of that era it was rare to have enough land to raise chickens however slaughter houses (pork, lamb, veal, and beef) could still be located ‘in town’. The idea of breading veal or pork like fried chicken became a cheaper and popular meal.
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Another is Lox and Bagels…
Lox and bagels traditionally consist of an open-faced bagel topped with cream cheese, thinly sliced red onions, briny capers, and lox.
Lox
The word lox stems from the Yiddish word for salmon, “laks.” Lox is a thinly sliced salmon fillet, usually in the belly, and undergoes curing and brining process in a salty brine (not smoked). Lox comes from Scandinavia, where fishermen mastered the art of preserving salmon in saltwater brine. Native Americans also smoked and dried the fish’s carcasses for food and currency.
Lox2
In 1869, the transcontinental railroad began to transport barrels of salted salmon from the Pacific coast to the rest of the country. This gave rise to its popularity in New York City, especially among the Eastern European Jewish immigrants who came to the U.S. with a rapport for cured and smoked fish.
Bagels made an appearance in China and then glamorized in Italy around the 14th century. The capers came from Italy, while cream cheese has roots in Britain. So, lox or bagels did not originally come from New York City. Nor did cream cheese or capers, for that matter. New Yorkers were the ones that put them together, and it made an excellent combination. It is a mystery as to when the fish and the bagel were first eaten together.
What is the Difference Between Lox and Smoked Salmon
Lox and smoked salmon are both varieties of salmon, but they are prepared differently. They have a similar texture, but the flavor is different.
Lox is cured but not smoked, while smoked salmon is cured then smoked. Because of this, smoked salmon is not quite as salty as lox.
Honestly, you cannot go wrong with either! Contrary to how this dish was originally enjoyed, it doesn’t have to come from the belly of the salmon but from other parts of the fish as well.
In sixth grade, the school found out that there was an armed man who had recently committed matricide roaming around within a 10 mile radius. We were on lockdown all day- but we were happy, because that meant we could watch movies in class for 7 hours straight.
In seventh grade, a kid told his PE teacher that he saw a man with a gun on campus. Within minutes, the entire school was on lockdown. So was the nearby high school and two nearby elementary schools. After a few hours, the police realized that the kid had fabricated the entire story to get out of running a mile.
Yesterday, the substitute teacher freaked out because a student had left to go to the bathroom without telling him. “I am responsible for all of your guys’ safety!” he exclaimed, turning an alarming shade of maroon. We fought to hide our giggles and smiles.
This morning, I got texts from multiple friends. “We’re on lockdown! Don’t come to school for office hours. Someone called 911 and said they heard gunshots.” Minutes later, they received an all-clear. It was just an air gun from the school construction site. “Who would be dumb enough to call THAT in?” was all we said. “Now I lost precious time for my test retake.”
When I lived in Texas, we had tornado drills. Here, we have earthquake drills. In other parts of the country, they have hurricane and even blizzard drills. But you know what never changes? Every school across the nation has a code red drill. We hear “code red!” and we immediately know what to do. Lights off, doors locked, silently start stacking desks and chairs against all doors and windows. Run or hide, depending on where you are. Every classroom has a bag with food and water and books. Every kid knows how it goes, no matter how young or old they are. Every year comes with the same routine.
“We’re having a code red drill today.”
“Oh, yes! Free time to just sit on my phone!”
What disgusts me about America is how desensitized we have become to gun violence.
Edit: If you’re going to comment saying your school doesn’t have code red drills but has lockdowns or shooting drills instead, don’t bother. They are all the same thing and meant to protect us against gun violence.
Minute Steak Parmesan
mediterranean steak pasta
Ingredients
5 minute steaks
1 beaten egg
1 tablespoon water
Dash of pepper
1/4 cup soda cracker crumbs
1 (8 ounce) can pizza sauce
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup vegetable oil
Instructions
Dip steaks in combined egg, water and pepper. Coat with mixture of crumbs and half of the cheese.
Brown in hot oil; drain on absorbent paper.
Arrange in baking dish; cover with pizza sauce, and top with remaining cheese.
Bake at 325 degrees F for about 20 minutes.
Why are the average working/unemployed American citizens so poor and live miserable lives when the nation is so wealthy?
The disparity between the wealth of a nation and the financial well-being of its citizens can be attributed to several interconnected factors:
1. Income Inequality
Wealth Concentration: A significant portion of wealth is concentrated in the hands of a small percentage of the population. This limits economic mobility for the average citizen.
Wage Stagnation: Many workers have experienced stagnant wages over the past few decades, failing to keep pace with the cost of living.
2. Cost of Living
Housing Costs: In many areas, housing costs have skyrocketed, making it difficult for individuals to afford homes.
Healthcare and Education: High costs in healthcare and education can lead to significant financial burdens, impacting overall quality of life.
3. Labor Market Dynamics
Job Availability: Many low-skilled jobs have been outsourced or automated, limiting opportunities for entry-level workers.
Gig Economy: While the gig economy offers flexibility, it often lacks benefits and stable income, leaving many workers vulnerable.
4. Systemic Barriers
Discrimination: Racial, gender, and economic disparities can limit opportunities for many citizens.
Access to Education: Quality education is not equally accessible, affecting job prospects and earning potential.
5. Political and Economic Policies
Tax Policies: Tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations can exacerbate income inequality.
Social Safety Nets: Insufficient social safety nets can leave unemployed or low-income individuals without adequate support.
6. Cultural Factors
Consumerism: A culture focused on consumption can lead individuals to prioritize spending over saving, contributing to financial instability.
Conclusion
The combination of these factors creates a complex landscape where many Americans struggle to achieve financial stability despite living in a wealthy nation. Addressing these issues requires comprehensive policy changes and societal shifts to promote equity and opportunity for all citizens.
Retirement age starts rising from 60 to 63 by 2040. White collar women’s retirement age increases from 55 to 58; women in blue-collar jobs will go from 50 to 55. Life expectancy is 78.6, and years of education for new labor force entrants rose from 8 years in 1982 to 14 years in 2023.
Leaders from 54 African countries with 30% of the world’s population attended FOCAC. Xi: “We have together built roads, railways, schools, hospitals, industrial parks, and special economic zones. These projects have changed the lives and destiny of many people”. He committed another $50 billion to continue the work and canceled all tariffs for 33 African countries. The effect will be increased exports from Africa to China.
The UN General Assembly adopted two Chinese resolutins: The first is that July 6 will be “World Rural Development Day” (America has always been hostile to development in foreign countries and China is seeking to have development recognized as a human right). The second, the “United Nations Games” resolution, calls for convening the UN Games annually and invites relevant stakeholders to make voluntary contributions to a trust fund dedicated to the Games (a shot across the bow of the corrupt, US-controlled IOC).
Geopolitics
The United States is losing ground in important parts of Asia. “For these poor but growing countries, the American mortgage crisis was a staggering affair: why give poor people high-interest mortgages when they know they won’t be able to pay them back? Morality at zero. The irresponsibility of the United States was soon joined by that of Europe, so slow to react. In truth, it was China’s massive stimulus policy that pulled the world out of recession. The emergence of the BRICs rebounds from this double Western irresponsibility.”
Two Years After Divorce Nurse Ex Is BEGGING Me Back After Lover Ditched Her…And The Baby
What was the most outrageous repair quote a mechanic has ever given you to fix your car?
Many, many years ago, I bought a beautiful, well maintained 1988 Mercedes 420 SEL. Incredible car, tons of torque, four heated, reclining seats, electric sun sccreen for the rear window and a long list of other fancy toys, all of which was working, for £500.00.
An absolute steal.
One random morning, the remote wouldn’t unlock the car doors. When I pressed the remote, the little tabs on the inside of the door would wiggle a little bit, but they would not pop up and allow access to the car.
Even though the car key would allow me to unlock the drivers door, I considered this an inconvenience.
I took the car to a mechanic shop in Bermondsey, South London. Now, that really should have been my first clue that I was about to be fleeced. For all the qualities you would ordinarily perscribe to the fine folks of Bermondsey, honesty most certainly was not high on the list.
The gentleman (in lack of a better, more suitable term) explained to me, after a demonstration of the problem that this very costly repair would involve him to check the airlines all around the car and perform various tests etc at the cost of £70.00 per hour, and the cost of whichever parts would be needed.
He explained to me that the absolute best-case scenario would be north of £800.00 with no guarantee that he could fix it.
I pondered this for about 15 seconds, and told him I would just live with the problem, rather than pay close to twice the purchase price of the car for a little irritation.
I went home, pondered this some more and started wondering what the issue could be. I decided to have a look around, and started with the fusebox under the bonnet.
It was obvious that one of the fuses had blown (but I had no idea what that particular fuse was for) so I bout a pack of 4 fuses and changed it, like for like. Then I forgot about it for a while.
The next time I drove the car, I pressed the remote button ( out of muscle memory) and the doors opened immediately.
Repair cost: £0.64.
What a fucker.
What is the most unreasonable rule an HOA has ever tried to enforce on a homeowner?
Had a friend sell his place that was in an HOA recently and the following was the main reason. A few years ago, his roof needed replacing and he had the HOA brochure for colors and went to the roofer the HOA had listed. He picked his color and the new roof was installed after the prior ones were removed since the thickness was too much. Of course, removing the old roof on a 3000 sf house is not a small job so a dumpster was needed. The HOA attempted to fine him for the dumpster and he ignored them (it was there 3 days) and had the roof installed. Then he meticulously cleaned the whole driveway to get anything that didn’t hit the dumpster and next policed his own place and the neighbor’s.
A few days after he finished, he got a written notice from the HOA lawyers that he needed to removed the dumpster (already gone after the 3 days), and that there was debris all over the place from the old roof and, by the way, the new roof did not conform to the color choices the HOA allowed. Really? He took them to court when the harassment did not stop and went in with the contractor (who hated the HOA even though they brought him work), photos time and date stamped that showed the dumpster and when it left and how the yards looked the day after the roof was done. He also had the brochure that showed his roof color was in that brochure.
The HOA had no actual evidence and thought they could bully him into paying an unwarranted fine. The judge ended up awarding the whole cost of the roof and lawyer and all court costs to my friend along with damages of $10,000 to my friend for all the trouble they cause him. In the ruling, he admonished the HOA for not following their own rules, harassment, and over eagerness for money not owed them. The HOA president and board were replace in the next election due in part to this incident and many other infractions.
My friend put his house on the market the week after the trial and is no longer in that state since he retired.
What 10 Years in China and Europe Taught This American
How strong would a resisting inmate need to be to make the staff give up on strip searching him?
Funny story about that.
When I was working county jail, I met a guy who was on “light duty”. He was confined to a desk for having blown out knees at the job. I asked him what happened.
His story was that one day, the deputies had dragged in a drunk guy on domestic violence charges. This guy was beyond obese and butt naked(of course). Being drunk, he did not appreciate the hospitality of the county jail.
Once put in the drunk tank, he flooded the cell.
Staff converged with one very trigger happy sergeant.
Now, I dealt with this behavior in maximum security prison for two years before going to county. If an inmate is flooding his cell, he does NOT need to leave the cell. He will most certainly be fighting you the second that door rolls. What you do is, you turn off the water to his cell and you put some towels by his door to mop up any water. Give him the amount of time he needs to cool off then you provide him with towels to clean up his cell and return the water. NO ONE NEED GET HURT, not you, not him.
This sergeant decided that opening the door and forcing a hasty cell extraction was a good idea.
Another trick from maximum security prison. First put on armor, so when you’re rolling around with the Blob in the cell, you don’t hurt yourself. Two, pepper spray the inmate before hand. Simply feeling the burn of pepper spray will encourage him to surrender. If you still have to go in, he will be at a disadvantage to fight you, being blinded.
This sergeant decided that he didn’t need anything but his baton. He and a couple jailers rolled the door. The Blob came stampeding out. Sarge tries to step in the way, only to get bowled over. Jailers dive on the inmate, trying to get him into handcuffs. He is not having it.
Sarge whips out his ASP baton and starts striking the inmate’s leg. The baton snaps in half and the Blob looks none the worse for wear. So you have four guys wrestling on the ground with a naked 300 lb man.
Additional staff starts running in. Problem is, when the door rolled a couple dozen gallons of water came out of the cell. Staff is slipping and sliding. My coworker runs up, slips and cracks both his knees.
I saw the footage of this and it was an absolute crap shoot. How everything got ironed out, I didn’t get to see but it did. Word was that the guy woke up the next day and had no idea what happened. He bonded out and was never seen again.
So, to give you an answer, prisons and jails will line every single officer up to make sure an inmate submits.
Who are the scariest people in history?
Narcissism raged very high with this one.
His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.
Those were official titlels he conferred himself, in addition to his unofficial stated claim of being the uncrowned King of Scotland.
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Amin was the dictator of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. He charmed and promised the world that he would bring peace and democracy to the people of his country. Instead, he turned Uganda into a poverty-stricken land patrolled by death squads.
Amin was possibly the most brutal and merciless dictator of all time. His rule was characterized by human rights abuses, ethnic persecution, political repression, massacres and the expulsion of 80,000 Asians from Uganda. In my opinion, he was probably the most sadistic dictator in the 20th century.
He would show executions of people on television. Everyone was a good game for torture and execution: his country’s soldiers, government officials, teachers, artists, doctors, journalists, engineers, politicians, police officers, photographers, lawyers, business people, ordinary citizens, ministers, and children.
His henchmen tortured and killed people with sledgehammers while Amin kept the pictures for fun and amusement.
This sadistic beast relished when he buried his victims alive and would often give the heads of his enemies to crocodiles. Hundreds of thousands of dead bodies washed up to the shores of Lake Victoria. More than 4,000 people were killed by being thrown into crocodile-infested rivers. Another 50,000 people died from disease, most were children.
As if that was not disturbing enough he would cut the flesh of his perceived enemies and force them to eat it until they died. He was also a cannibal who ate human flesh and drank human blood. It is stated that he proudly admitted he was a cannibal.
His depravity came full circle when he mutilated one of his wives and had her limbs sewn upside down.
In total, it’s estimated he killed and tortured 300,000 to 500,000 Ugandans.
On the 11 April 1979, the Tanzanian Army invaded Uganda and ousted him, he went into exile in Saudi Arabia (really humane of you Saudi Arabia) for the rest of his life.
Amin died almost 25 years later in 2003. In that time Amin lived a very peaceful life.
When I think of the atrocities committed against such a young innocent country by this sick depraved man, I weep a little and feel ashamed for such human being every existed.
Scary!
SCOOBY-DOO – 1950’s Super Panavision 70
How can one person fight more than 3 people at the same time and win?
You can’t spar them. It’s not a fair fight, so you can’t trade blows. Every strike you hit might be your last, and if you get hit, it’s going to be only the first of many. So you have to be fierce.
Make sure it hurts them more: A punch to the forehead hurts your hand more than the opponent’s head. Hit where it hurts – nose, eyes, throat, groin, knees, feet. Anything goes. A nose is your best target, as it is very sensitive. Anyone not used to sparring and taking strikes to the nose will immediately get tears in their eyes, and most people lose their will to fight. If they bleed, even better! You took one out and drew first blood. The others might think twice before engaging.
No matter what, don’t let them grapple you: If someone gets a hold to your arm, you need to make them let go immediately. Twist their arm, use the grapple to get them near and use your elbows and knees to make more damage. Stomp their feet. This is the worst possible scenario, if they somehow grab both your arms you’ll lose the ability to defend yourself. If they drag you to the ground, it’s over. Make sure to punish a grappler in a way the others will prefer striking you than grappling. Knee to groin, elbow to the nose. Do anything you can to set this rule in the combat, that you will not allow anyone to grab you in any way.
Don’t try the same strategy on everyone: If you poked a finger on the first guy’s eye, the other ones will be guarded against this. If you kick someone’s groin, the next one will try to grab your leg. So you need to approach each one differently. I understand this is not something people train for, and is not easy to remember internet tips when the blood pumps and survival mode kicks in. But if you can’t think, you’re done. Think of at least one weak spot for each one: nose, eyes, throat, groin, knees, feet. And stick to them.
Don’t get surrounded: If it’s an option, quickly grasp your opponents position and don’t let them surround you. Get somewhere they can’t hit you from behind. Even if you got your back covered, when one of them fights you there will be an opening for another to hit you from behind. So it’s crucial not getting surrounded by them. If you can’t run away, at least find a 90º corner or a corridor so they can’t all at the sime time get to you.
Mess with their morale: I have avoided fights by acting weird. I have de-escalated fights using my own blood (I had this accidental cut while pushing away an attacking bully, the others thought it was his blood). Call them cowards for teaming up. Tell them you got nothing to lose. Or everything to lose – that you got a daughter that needs you. Yell at them, say you already lost so you’ll take as many as you can to the hospital with you.
Flee to a better place: Run away to somewhere crowded if you’re all alone. Get on the top of a staircase. Lock yourself somewhere. Create hurdles for them to pass, skip a fence so you can slow some of them down. Climb onto a second-story building.
Give up (true of not): You need to put winning in perspective. What is a win? The goal here is surviving, right? So if you give up fighting and show it, the fight might de-escalate enough that someone intervenes. Raise your hands to show you mean no harm. If they still engage into fighting, at least you may surprise them. They have to deal with an unexpected change of pace – at one second you’ve surrended, at the next you just defeated someone.
Don’t do it: Against everything I wrote here, don’t fight unless you absolutely have to. This is my final advice. Four muggers want your phone? It’s ok. At least you won’t get hurt. You won’t have to get surgery or physical rehabilitation. You won’t lose teeth – if you still got all your teeth, keep them. Dentures are bad. Teeth implants are expensive. Knee treatments not always work fully, you may get a bad knee for the rest of your life. You might be handicapped as a result of some street brawl. So only do it if nothing else can be done.
What is the last thing you heard from someone before they died?
I received a phone-call that my mother was on her way from her hometown to a big city cardio hospital and that it looks dire. I, because of a shorter distance and because the ambulance had to stop to stabilize Mom, beat the ambulance to the hospital and were waiting in the arrivals for them.
When the paramedics unloaded her she was conscious and responsive and I in passing said “vasbyt Mamma, sien jou nou” (hold on Mamma, I’ll see you soon.” She reached out touched my arm and said “Nee, dis verby.” (No, it’s all over) as the paramedics rushed passed me.
She was rushed to the cardiopulmonary wing ICU and we (dad, one sister and I) waited in the waiting room. At one stage I went and peeped through the gap in the doors and I could see the doctors and or nurses bussy with CPR on her. You can probably imagine the amount of dread that induced in me.
It was not a short while later that the cardiologist came to us and explained that although they did everything they could the damage to her heart was just too severe.
I, because she was awake and responsive, assumed that because we were with the best minds in medicine available that she would be okay. She obviously understood her own body better and could appreciate the severity of her condition better. She knew, “Nee, dis verby.”
I had to come to grips, not only with the loss, but also with the understanding that it must have been a most terrifying end for her, knowing that her time with us has reached its end, in some ways that have been harder, and even now bring tears to my eyes and form a obstruction in my throat.
Gone, but not forgotten, I still miss her daily.
Bewitched as a 1970s Grindhouse Horror – Super Panavision 70
Jagged spears of light sliced through the dome of the cavern. The planet Xenoscythe’s sun, Aerialis spun in a perpetual dance with its barren rocky surface. Its scant rays fed the underground cathedral rock amphitheaters through rifts in the crust, allowing life to survive under the surface. Vast rippling pools of fresh water were ringed with igneous rock formations bursting with gold and green mosses, giant leafed ferns, purple flowers, succulent fruits, amphibians, and tiny flitting red finches. The sounds of the waterfall splashing into the small lake murmured in Tokarov’s ear as he opened an eye and yawned.His bed was a pile of soft dark green and lavender feathers nestled in the soft powdery clay dust under a stone outcrop. He rolled over and looked at her. Marble skin hid under a silken sheet emblazoned with the same iridescent sheen that made the feathers shimmer in the dim light. Reaching out, he stroked the burgundy curls cascading down her slender shoulders. Lora Lei stirred, shifting in her sleep. Tokarov scooted his naked frame over to hers and held her, folding down the blanket and rubbing her arm, reaching to feel the growing bulge in her belly.Sitting up in a quick motion, Lora Lei stretched her long limbs and let out a noisy yawn. He was transfixed, staring at her vulnerable, supple frame as she fought off the fog of sleep.“I need to feed.” Her purple irises flashed at him as a knowing smile dotted her lips.”I’m sure some poor Grigglesneed is just waiting to have his head torn off.” Tokarov slid on his trousers and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He turned away not wanting to see it again.The Sabinarath Lora Lei transformed into was tragically beautiful and terrifying. A long beak lined with razor-sharp serrations jutted from in between two enormous purple eyeballs the size of dinner plates. Her arms stretched into wings, trailing in flowing green feathers, with legs ending in talons and scaley bird-like feet. Two steps and Tokarov felt the wind as she took flight in the cavern, swirling up into the light, landing, and disappearing into the crevice in the cave ceiling.Now alone, Tokarov slipped on his cotton tunic and bounded barefoot toward the stand of fruit trees near her lair. Flipping his dagger from its worn and humble brown leather sheath, he sliced through sinew strands of the sweet yellow-striped fruit that smelled like bananas and tasted like kiwis. Digging his teeth into the flesh, he tried to fight off the images of his mate feeding. Grigglesneeds were hearty reptilian humanoids with tails like a crocodile and legs like an iguana. She assured him, that the nutrients the fresh meat provided was necessary for their alien hybrid to grow. Thankfully, she would plunge into the water upon return and wash off the blood. He shuddered and swallowed, cutting up another fruit.He nursed the fire, blowing on it with a tube to resurrect the orange flames. Piling on some small sticks, the hearth fended off the chill of the morning. The sun provided enough light for life, but no heat in the vast cave where they lived. He ruminated on the stories of the Wombs of Xenoscythe recited to him by Lora Lei. These natural formations were homes to the trial winners, ones who fought to live, ones tasked with birthing a new species capable of surviving, capable of thriving. It was rumored the Overlords of Xenoscythe had seed planets ready. They only harvested the planets that were dying, planets like the Earth, Tokarov’s home.His mind’s eye replayed the evacuation. Long flexible tubes sucked the few dozen humans that had survived the armageddon from the surface of Earth. They were able to watch on a large digital screen in their holding area from the immense interstellar ship as a robotic arm equipped with a cylindrical head, lined with thousands of teeth tore into the Earth’s crust. A hose the size of a mountain range vacuumed the remains into a storage vessel. In a few minutes, the Earth was reduced to a molten mash of bits, simmering in a cargo ship three times its size. A loud splash jolted him back to the present.
He turned to see the surface of the water rippling. Lora Lei’s head slowly parted the water, her hair flowing in the water. Her body was like a master’s painting, flawless and timeless. She cupped a hand to her belly and looked up with a radiant smile at Tokarov. He looked away with a bashful grin.
“What are you going to name it?” The question struck him.
“Shouldn’t we decide that together?”
“We both know how this is going to end. You need to be planning, gestation with my species only takes a couple of moon cycles.” Lora’s eyes widened as she felt a movement in her abdomen. She grabbed his wrist and placed his hand on her stomach.
“I don’t feel anything.”
“In time, dear, in time.”
“What if I don’t know what to do? I have spent my adult life fighting, living the life of a warrior. I don’t know anything about raising a child.” He looked at his blade, its metal stained with the blood of enemies and friends alike.
“We are all imbued with the spirit of life, Tokarov. Death is just another part of life. An animal doesn’t need to read a book to nurture its young. We are programmed with DNA and powers beyond our comprehension. Billions of years ago rocks did not just spring to life and start breathing. We are moved and gifted with a force, a force of life that makes us want to live.” Lora sifted her fingers through his long hair, prying to confront his soul. He hid it behind his humanity, shielding his vulnerabilities.
“I’ve spent my life killing and dying, hoping for a glorious warrior’s death on the battlefield, with the gods of war smiling down on me, applauding my effort.” He unsheathed the dagger, spinning it in his hand with precision.
“What if there are no gods? What if there is only one single thread that holds us all together? What would you call it? A presence? A what? What would it be called?” She felt in her heart she had him cornered.
“Life?”
“What gives life?”
“The sun? I don’t know.”
“Spirit, Tokarov! Every culture has figured it out since the dawn of time. They call it by different names, but unless you embrace the spirit you will always be lost. You can take a man’s life, only One can take his spirit.”
“Who is the One then?”
“You have already met Him, you just don’t yet believe.”
“Will I in time?”
“You will, you will…”
Time is an immutable force that whisks us to our destiny whether we are ready or not. The weeks that followed were the stuff of fairy tales. Love, bonding, and long afternoon embraces all contained in a place that could only be compared to the Eden of antiquity. Yet not everything is as one sees, for every life there must be a death.
“Didn’t we meet just a few weeks ago?”
“And?”
“You said the gestation would take a few moon cycles. On my planet that is sixty days.”
“Well, Xenoscythe is not your planet. My offspring is ripe, ready for the world.”
Tokarov screwed up his face a bit. Lora Lei was quite large to be in her first trimester. He had felt the fetus move a week ago, yet now nothing. Her belly was stiff and bloated. As the light from Aerialis dimmed in the cavern, she stopped, flaring her fingers out with wide eyes.
“The time is now!”
Tokarov led her to the lair, to their bed, the only soft place in the cavern. He folded up his shirt and placed it under her head and neck. She pulled off her clothes and lay there naked, pulling her ankles up to her buttocks with her hands and beginning a bizarre breathing pattern, eyes staring straight up.
Tokarov watched as nature took over and her body engaged in its genetic instructions. A sweat broke over her body and her abdominal muscles undulated, like a python swallowing a pig in reverse. He touched her arm, but she was fixated on the birthing process. Curious, he looked down to see if the baby had crowned yet. In humans, one could see the top of the head and some dark hair. Yet, the birth canal revealed a shiny, white, curved surface. He stopped and caught a breath. It was then she spoke for the final time.
“You must take it to the surface of Xenoscythe. Only Aerialis can free our child. I loved you.”
A final push released the egg from her womb. Lora’s body fell limp. Tokarov touched the egg, its surface sticky with slime. He rubbed it with his fingers, momentarily forgetting about its mother. Then he stopped, his eyes wet, and looked up to her face. Emotion was gone.
Her body lay limp and lifeless, the Sabinarath had kept its word and given itself up for the birth. He racked a few selfish sobs. Not sure what to do he decided to carry her body into the water and allow nature to take it back from him. As he pushed the body out into the lake, birds in the cavern shrieked in a cacophony of sounds. He knew it was done, yet something else had begun.
There was no easy path to the surface. He could not fly like the Sabinarath. He had to carry the egg back through the caverns if he could remember the way. The egg was the size of a small watermelon. Needing his respirator to breathe in the caverns, Tokarov knew this was no minor adventure. Pulling on boots and checking his breathing apparatus, he plugged the tubes into his nostrils, spinning the oxygen generator onto his back. It sprang to life puffing air into his nasal passage. Lifting Lora’s dress from the ground he used his knife to fashion it into a sling for the egg, carefully cradling it and placing the strap over his shoulder.
He slipped through the web-covered secret entrance one last time and flicked on his headlamp. It danced back and forth as the cave yawned on. His running banged out a tired rhythm as the egg swayed and the light bounced. After what felt like a kilometer or more, a few forks in the road, and guessing, Tokarov saw the soft light of a feeding shaft in the distance. He picked up his gait to a full run and was digging in a heel to slow down when the stars burst into his eyes as he blacked out. His last thought was to protect the egg and in falling he wrapped his body in sacrifice around it.
“GGGRRR ZZZZ AAAHHHH!!!!” The familiar tongue of the Grigglesneed met his ears. Digging for his waistband he felt the dagger’s handle and wrapped it in a firm grip. The lizard man rolled him over and felt the egg, its tongue flicking out and tasting the shell. Tokarov wrapped his free hand around the creature’s throat and lunged with the blade, aiming to plant it in the center of its walnut-sized brain. The lizard heaved and shoved him.
Its strength was unbelievable. It tossed him against the rib of the cave like a doll and hissed. Arms were rippled with armor scales and flexed three-fingered palms tipped in dirty, sharp talons. Tokarov pushed himself up on unsteady feet and brandished the blade in his back hand. Looking over, the egg was cradled in its sling on the rock floor. The diamond slits of its eyes narrowed in the darkness, the light of the overhead shaft illuminating the scuffle. Tokarov saw his headlamp lying near the creature’s foot. He knew if he could blind it, even momentarily, the advantage would be his. Diving for the light, he flicked the switch, jamming it in the Grigglesneed’s eyes. The shrieking echoed in the close space and Tokarov shoved the blade to the beast’s throat, pushing it into the flesh. The lizard was too strong. It reached a claw around his forearm it pushed the knife from its throat. Shoving him back, it thrust Tokarov to the wall of the cave, its hot breath washing over his face.
“AAAAIIIIIIEEEEEE!!!!” Blood burst from the creature’s head as a sword cleaved off half its head, splattering Tokarov in a mess of fluid and brain matter. As it fell back, he dropped to his knees and caught a breath trying to wipe the blood from his eyes. Looking up he saw the smiling face of Ego, his arm resting on the hilt of a double-handed claymore sword.
“Dear God, you just saved my life.”
“Not just yours, you have a species to revive.”
“You, are now Who has always been.”
“We are all just trying to survive, even the gods among us.”
“What am I to do?”
“Gather yourself and your future. I will get you to the surface.”
Tokarov sheathed his dagger and gathered himself, placing the egg in the sling over his shoulder, and looked at Ego, “What now?”
“Extend your arms and position yourself under the shaft. I will do the rest.” Tokarov complied and Ego clasped his hands together and his lips danced with ancient words, bringing realization and tears to Tokarov’s eyes. The weight came off his feet as he ascended the shaft by faith alone with his future cradled around him.
At the planet’s surface, he floated down to the rocky ground, the heat of Aerialis bearing down on him. Gently unwrapping the Sabinarath’s egg, he held it up to the sun, allowing its rays to heat the shell, not quite knowing what would happen. As the star warmed it with its rays, something stirred inside. Sitting down, Tokarov placed the egg in his lap facing the sun.
Watching as it rocked and wiggled, he gasped as a tiny finger poked through the shell. Helping it along, he broke away the hard husk, revealing what looked like a human infant. As the light reached her eyes she squealed and kicked, punching away the last of its vessel. Holding her up in the light, he looked down, yes definitely able to reproduce. Wiggling and cooing, she locked eyes with Tokarov, her purple irises beaming in the sunlight. They both smiled as he held her close.
“I will name you Evangeline.” Tokarov kissed her cheek as a tear dripped off his nose, landing on her tender forehead.
A noise broke the communion as Tokarov saw the nose of a ship edging down toward the surface of Xenoscythe. The Overlords were here, to where they traveled next only they would know.
SEINFELD | 1950’s Super Panavision 70
Some AI image generations by MM
Enjoy.
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What made you realize your life will never be the same?
I suspected but did not know if my wife was having an affair. She had been texting a guy that she said was a friend. I had been hospitalized with appendicitis a few weeks before and was still at home hardly able to walk. I heard a text come in very late at night. She was asleep. I could not sleep due to pain. I looked.
Here is what I read:
Scumbag: Sorry about pregnancy. Def me?
I was blown away. I knew immediately what this meant. I woke her up and showed her. I was too shocked to be angry or hostile. My head was spinning. I could hardly breath. She denied they had sex.
She said Scumbag didn’t know how babies were made!!!
He was a married father of three that worked in the medical field. She said she could explain it. That I was reading too much into it.
I’m sure she did think that she could talk her way out of it in the morning. She had talked her way out of many other similar, albeit less damning and concrete situations over the last few months. She took her phone and fell back asleep right away as she had been drinking quite a bit.
I knew the truth but did not want any chance for her to be able to have even a fig leaf of cover. Once she was asleep again I got her phone and texted back to Scumbag, pretending to be her.
Me for her: What do you mean by Def me???
Scumbag: Are you sure it was me that got you pregnant?
I woke her again and showed her this new evidence. She no longer denied it. She was in tears, telling me she had broken up with him weeks ago. She said when she realised I could have died from the burst appendix that she really wanted me and not him. I believed it then, briefly. We are divorced now. Of course.
What do you think of the education system in China?
I have studied with, taught and collaborated professionally with products of the Chinese education system.
My friend from beida likes to boast she placed in the top half of her faculty. She wears it with plenty of pride, because she was one of several applicants from her province that was accepted that year. She considers my intellect average at best.
Another friend from qinghua blew my socks away when he elegantly derived a molecular dynamics homework question I had spent a fruitless night on. He did not need to consult any references and wasn’t taking the class. And no, he wasn’t a physics or chemistry major.
I will say the professionally qualified in china deserve their credentials, especially the nationally recognized standards or schools.
A shanghai/Beijing academy qualified dancer/singer/actor will have the requisite skill/looks/grooming to begin a performance career. An nth grade welder will be able to make welds only a select few can nationwide. A fudan PhD possesses a rare quality of mind.
And so on.
There is incredible competition in china, across all trades and professions. And China has a systematic mechanism of identifying, developing and sifting through the stream. In certain realms such as the arts and select technical trades, the mechanism is more thorough and rigorous than most countries. For example, emcees and newscasters must obtain a practicing cert, just like lawyers in many countries.
That’s the cream of the crop. Much work remains on the other end, where millions in each cohort still skip the gaokao due to lack of opportunity.
Gilligan’s Island as a 1970s Grindhouse Horror – Super Panavision 70
This question is for the retired people. How did you get adjusted with the retired life at the initial stage? What was your routine during the first three months after your retirement?
I retired in 2017
It was a Tuesday. I had had a Dinner just the evening given by the department and had received the traditional gift. It was all OVER and seriously – i felt liberated or free – FOR ABOUT 12 HOURS.
Then i woke up on Wednesday – my first thought was mechanical. It was 6:40 in the morning – my usual wake up time and it took me almost 20 minutes to realize I was Retired.
I sat there feeling depressed for some strange reason, My routine was gone. Leaving the house at 9:20 AM after breakfast, going to the office, doing some work, participate in a handful of meetings and returning back home. IT was over.
I missed the 11:00 AM – Coffee first. Then i missed the Lunch in the Canteen at 1:30 PM. Then i missed the general talk. My wife was gone (She teaches). I had never felt so lonely in my life.
At 3:30 – I dressed up and went to my workplace. I did not care – i just decided to go. I reached there at around 4:15 and there was a flutter. Everyone was puzzled. They greeted me, milled around me. My AGM invited me into his cabin for a cup of tea. It felt Good again. I had to make up a lie about why i was there of course. Some lie about some file which i presume nobody believed.
I left at 6:30 – feeling better. It was like going home after a regular day of work.
However i knew – if i keep going back – i would soon be ignored or curtly told to go home and i did not want that.
So i had to find a way out of my boredom.
The next 2 days were Torture. Staying alone at home – watching TV, Browsing the Internet, Disturbing my kids (I would Skype them at 2 PM when it was 12:30 Midnight)
A Lot of suggestions came up – including – trying how to cook (Which was a disaster).
It was perhaps on the 15th day – that i got a call
A Local company in Bangalore was sigining an MOU with a Malaysian Company and the Lawyer wanted someone who understood “Contracts” and knew about “Malaysia and Singapore” for an outside opinion.
He couriered me the documents and i gave my first legal opinion. I got my first legal fee – Rs. 7500/- since 1983
A Few days later- the Company invited me to Bangalore. I agreed and was planning to stay with my sister when they sent an email – booking me a room in a Hotel and booking a flight ticket for me and asking me for my consultancy charges?
First experience of such things.
Of course I had to portray myself as a Top corporate lawyer. I printed visiting cards , purchased a few clothes and went on my first consultation.
Life slowly changed
I found some work – enough to keep me slightly busy with contracts from Singapore/Malaysia/US
I found Quora – and it was a huge, huge relief.
I found Movies – getting complimentary tickets for every film from my Auditor Friend who himself did not care for movies.
Now i have my latest interest in Computers and C Programming (I am now at Arrays)
So slowly you get adapted to a new life. One post retirement.
If you can get past the early days – You get used to it and then slowly begin to forget what it was life when you had a Working life.
My advise:-
(a) Always have a Hobby – Reading, Browsing. A Hobby would be very useful indeed.
(b) If possible try to get away for a Holiday soon as you retire
(c) Keep mobile – Walks, Going to the market etc.
(d) Join Quora – It seriously was a life saver for me. I was busy only around 20 hours or so every week – the rest of the time it was Quora which saved me.
(e) If you long to go back to your workplace – Dont!!!! Have Rarity Value.
How democratic, free, and prosperous is China in the 21st century?
Chinese and westerners have very different ideas about personal and group rights, so it is impossible to give an answer which pleases everyone.
For Americans and westerners, the threat comes from an over-reaching government which wants to extend its power over every facet of personal life. So for them, the power of the Chinese government to store voice, gait and facial recognition, full access to to digital communications when needed, access to bank accounts, etc represents a typical tyranny which is unacceptable by western standards.
For Chinese though, the greatest threat came from foreign invasion and occupation. To most Chinese, the Chinese government is their guardian and protector from foreign exploitation. Most Chinese believe that the government should have access to bank records and personal data. If the Chinese government did not have free access, how would it catch criminals and corrupt officials who abuse their power. After all, if a citizen is honest, why does he care about his own privacy? He has nothing to hide!
This means that there is no objective standard for judging how democratic China is, because the west and Asians see the same thing completely differently.
The Decline of the United States: A Multifaceted Story
In Search Of Truth September 29, 2024
The Decline of the United States: A Multifaceted Story
The idea that the United States is in decline has been a recurring theme in political and cultural discourse, particularly over the past few decades. While the term “decline” can be subjective and varies depending on one’s perspective, several indicators point toward significant challenges the U.S. faces that have contributed to this narrative. From economic stagnation and political polarization to social unrest and a weakened global influence, the decline of the U.S. is a multifaceted issue. Below is an exploration of the key dimensions driving this perceived fall from prominence.
1. Economic Inequality and Stagnation
The American Dream, which once symbolized upward mobility, has become increasingly out of reach for many. While the U.S. remains a wealthy nation, the distribution of wealth has skewed sharply toward the upper echelons of society. The top 1% of Americans control about a third of the nation’s wealth, while middle-class wages have stagnated for decades. This growing inequality has led to a breakdown in social cohesion, as many working- and middle-class Americans struggle to maintain their standard of living amid rising costs of housing, education, and healthcare.
The decline of American manufacturing, once the backbone of the economy, has been another contributing factor. With the advent of globalization and automation, many manufacturing jobs have moved overseas, leaving a void in many working-class communities. These economic changes have decimated industrial towns across the Midwest and Northeast, creating a sense of despair and fueling populist sentiments.
2. Political Polarization and Dysfunction
The U.S. political system has become more divided and dysfunctional than at any time in recent memory. While the country has always had political disagreements, the partisan divide today seems unbridgeable. On nearly every major issue—whether it be healthcare, immigration, or climate change—Americans are split along ideological lines. This polarization has eroded trust in institutions and undermined the basic functioning of government.
A significant factor in this polarization is the rise of hyper-partisan media, which often prioritizes sensationalism and outrage over nuanced debate. Social media platforms amplify these divisions by creating echo chambers, where people are exposed primarily to views that confirm their preexisting beliefs. The result has been a political landscape that feels more like a culture war than a forum for governance.
Moreover, the influence of money in politics has led to a system where special interests, corporate lobbyists, and wealthy donors wield disproportionate power. This has created a sense among many Americans that their government no longer represents their interests, leading to widespread disillusionment and apathy.
3. Social Fragmentation and Civil Unrest
American society has also become more fragmented. Racial, ethnic, and cultural divides, long part of the U.S. fabric, have grown sharper. The killing of George Floyd in 2020 and the subsequent protests brought to the surface long-simmering tensions over police brutality, systemic racism, and inequality. While these protests represented a call for justice, they also highlighted the deep rifts within American society.
The rise of identity politics, where individuals’ political positions are based on their race, gender, or ethnicity, has further contributed to social fragmentation. While the recognition of historically marginalized groups is essential, identity politics can sometimes lead to a zero-sum mindset, where groups see themselves in constant competition for limited resources or recognition.
Additionally, the erosion of traditional community structures, such as churches and civic organizations, has left many Americans feeling isolated and disconnected. The digital age has, paradoxically, contributed to this sense of isolation, as more people retreat into virtual spaces rather than engaging in face-to-face social interactions.
4. Global Influence and Military Overreach
The United States’ global standing has also diminished. Once the unchallenged leader of the free world, the U.S. now faces stiff competition from rising powers, most notably China. In the aftermath of World War II, the U.S. helped shape the liberal international order, promoting democracy, human rights, and free trade. However, in recent years, this order has frayed, with authoritarianism on the rise and international alliances weakening.
One of the major factors in this decline has been military overreach. Following the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which have dragged on with mixed results. These conflicts have drained U.S. resources, both in terms of money and human lives, while achieving limited success in stabilizing the regions involved. The U.S. has also been criticized for its role in destabilizing the Middle East and North Africa, contributing to the refugee crises and the spread of extremism.
The withdrawal from international agreements, such as the Paris Climate Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal, has also weakened the U.S.’s reputation as a reliable global leader. Meanwhile, China’s rise as an economic and geopolitical power has challenged the U.S. in key areas like technology, trade, and military might.
5. Cultural and Moral Decline
Many commentators also point to a cultural or moral decline as part of the broader story of America’s fall. Traditional values, such as family, faith, and civic duty, have been eroded by consumerism, individualism, and relativism. The pursuit of material wealth and instant gratification has replaced long-term commitment to communal or national goals.
This cultural shift has affected everything from education to political discourse. The U.S. education system, once the envy of the world, has fallen behind in key metrics, particularly in science and math. There is also a growing anti-intellectualism in certain segments of society, where expertise and facts are increasingly dismissed in favor of conspiracy theories and tribal loyalties.
The breakdown of the family unit has also been cited as a key indicator of moral decline. Rising divorce rates, single-parent households, and a general retreat from marriage have contributed to a sense of social instability, particularly among the younger generation.
6. Challenges to Democracy
Perhaps the most alarming sign of U.S. decline is the erosion of democratic norms. The events surrounding the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, including claims of election fraud and efforts to overturn results, have undermined confidence in the electoral process. The January 6th, 2021 attack on the Capitol, in which rioters sought to disrupt the certification of the election, was a watershed moment that exposed the fragility of U.S. democracy.
Voter suppression efforts, gerrymandering, and the influence of dark money have further weakened democratic participation. While the U.S. has long held itself up as a beacon of democracy, it now faces serious questions about the health of its own system.
Conclusion: A Path Forward?
The decline of the United States is not inevitable, nor is it irreversible. The country still possesses tremendous resources, talent, and potential. However, addressing the factors driving this decline will require bold action and a renewed sense of national purpose. Economic reforms to reduce inequality, a commitment to rebuilding trust in democratic institutions, and a more measured foreign policy are essential steps in reversing course.
Ultimately, the fate of the United States rests on whether it can overcome its divisions and recapture the spirit of unity and innovation that once made it a global leader. Whether or not it can, remains one of the defining questions of the 21st century.
What should you do if someone pulls up in a van with a gun and asks that you get in?
Gavin de Becker discusses this situation in his book — The Gift of Fear.
I will admit, I have not read his book. But I did see him interviewed for this book. And here, 18 yrs later, I still remember his example for the scenario.
Here is how he explained it.
If someone is trying to take you to a second crime scene, they are doing it for one reason only. That reason is to eventually murder you. After all, they can rob or rape you where you are.
If you’re going to die anyways, your best strategy is to try to get away.
Suppose they have a gun? How difficult is it to hit a moving target? Suppose it’s 50/50. So you have at least a half a chance of getting away?
In tests, the chances of being hit are less than 10% (I believe this was taken from police training sites). The chances of being hit in such a way that you couldn’t keep running were about 4%. The chances of being hit fatally, were about 1-2% (again, this was a long time ago, my numbers may not be exactly what he quoted, but they are pretty close).
So your choice is get in the van, and 100% chance of being murdered. Or take a chance, and have about a 10% of even being hit.
Always run. Run and scream.
The killer Muppets – 1940’s Super Panavision 70
Why does the PRC government care if Taiwan is independent? Taiwan is a small island without much strategic importance.
Taiwan is a small island without much strategic importance.
Says who? Says you? Who the fuck are you? What make you such a fucking expert?
Taiwan is strategically very, very important for the following reasons:
It is the key island in the first island chain that blocks China’s access to the Pacific.
If Taiwan falls under the control of the USA, then US forces (including nuclear missiles) could be less than a hundred miles away from China’s coast.
Taiwan is symbolic of China’s century of humiliation. The Chinese people demand that Taiwan be reunified.
TSMC.
No country should be expected to cede its territory for any reason. Should the USA cede Hawaii or Texas? Should the UK cede the Falkland Islands?
What was the most incredibly stupid (and avoidable) error a pilot made that caused the crash of a passenger airliner?
American Airlines flight 965 from Miami to Cali, Colombia. The aircraft was a Boeing 757–200. This flight took place on December 20, 1995 with 163 onboard.
Cali airport is situated in a thin valley surrounded by tall mountains. The plane was approaching Cali at night time. There was no radar at the airport because it was sabotaged by a terror group. So Air Traffic Control could not see where the aircraft was going.
As flight 587 was coming in for the approach, the pilots were planning to land on runway 01, but ATC offered if they wanted to land straight in on runway 19. The pilots accepted the straight in approach because it was faster. The flight had already been delayed a couple of hours back in Miami. With a sudden change in approach procedures, the pilots had to quickly figure out what navigation aides to use for the approach. And since they had to descend at a steeper rate, the pilots deployed the speed brakes to help with the descent.
One of the radio navigation points was ‘ROZO,’ and it was a point on the approach course for runway 19. The pilots had to program that non-directional beacon point on the flight computer. The crew typed in the letter R, and chose the first option on the list. But the waypoint the pilot chose was ROMEO which was in a completely different direction.
The plane made a left turn, and the pilots didn’t realize the plane was turning. And since the aircraft was flying in between mountains, the plane was turning into a mountain range. The alarm went off in the cockpit telling the pilots to immediately pull up. The captain did everything he could to climb. He pulled the yoke, and increased thrust on the engines. The problem was that in those few seconds of trying to save the airplane, he forgot that the speed brakes were still deployed which hinders the aircraft from climbing. The aircraft crashed near the peak of a mountain. Investigators believed that if the speed brakes were retracted immediately, the aircraft could have cleared the mountain.
There were 4 people who had survived the crash. There were a few others that survived the initial impact, but because it took search and rescue a long time to get to the crash site, they weren’t able to get medical treatment in time and succumb to their injuries.
After an investigation, the pilots big mistake was not typing into the flight computer ‘ROZO.’ When the pilots typed in R into the computer, they assumed that the ROZO would come up because it was the closest navigation aide. But the pilots didn’t realize they had to type in the letters ROZO. Investigators still don’t understand why the pilots didn’t see what the first option was on the list. It clearly said Romeo which wasn’t the waypoint the aircraft was supposed to go to. That one little mistake cost 159 lives. And the second mistake was failing to realize that the speed brakes were still deployed.
In US Army basic training, after lights out, could you get out of bed and do a workout and go for a run?
No.
Don’t be that guy. You will get plenty of work out before the lights go out.
If you try to pull some shit like that, you will be caught, and your Drill will wake the rest of us up, with some clever ideas to make the rest of us hate life, and in return, make us hate you!
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(The actual barracks he climbed out of)
We had a guy sneak out in the middle of the night once. Like some kind of ninja, this dude scaled down from the third story window in the middle of the night.
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He then ninja’d himself all the way to the vending machines with roughly $40 of money from other soldiers in his platoon.
Then this ninja dude climbed back in the 3rd story window, because the doors had alarms on them.
But instead of being a smart ninja dude, this soldier decided that since he took all the risk, he would just keep all the fatty cakes for himself.
This wall climbing troop didn’t give the other soldiers what they paid for, and decided the next day to take a nap inside of his wall locker with all of his ninja’d loot.
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Suffice it to say, the Drills were made aware of his mission, and they found him sleeping in a tiny closet with $40 worth of vending machine goods.
Three things you never want to do in Basic Training;
F*** your battle buddies
Piss off your Drill Sergeants
Get caught sleeping on duty
This ninja was 3 for 3.
The moral of the story is to not be a ninja. Go to effing sleep dude. Sleep is gold.
This story contains themes or mentions of physical violence, gore, or abuse.
The prison guard was an angry man, never smiling and rarely talking. He had been there for as long as Lucas could remember. Resentful and bitter he walked the corridors, giving the impression that at some point, something absolutely terrible was to happen to him. Lucas did not share his enraged aura, but he sure had the same outlook on what was to come. Whatever awaited him outside of these prison walls, Lucas was certain that it was nothing good..The same room had been his home since childhood. The bare walls had a gray-greenish color, the cracks gradually mending with time as the world slowly moved from disorder to order, from chaos to control. When he was a boy the window had been nothing but a gaping hole into the empty courtyard outside, and the wind had kept him up all night. Now, the glass covered almost all of the metal frame, leaving only a fine, glittering powder below, gathering strength and finding its purpose. So many years Lucas had spent staring into this ceiling, imagining the skies above it. Still, when the angry guard opened the door with a sharp “It’s time”, Lucas did not linger. The relief of leaving this place had been nesting in his stomach for months..Lucas knew the path through the prison, but the moment they left the main gate and headed to the sparsely trafficked street outfront, he was on new territory. The air, ground, trees, everything seemed different here, as if color had suddenly been injected into the universe. Blinking, it took him many moments to even reflect on what was supposed to follow. He did not need much reflection, it turned out, as the guard, now joined by some of his colleagues in a hostile silence, quickly shoved him into the back of a parked van. Loudly, and without warning, Lucas kneeled on the metal floor and vomited. He could feel this evening’s cereal stroke his palette as it left. The guard gave him a look of disapproval as he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and shakingly sat up with his back against the wall.“Motion sickness”, another guard snickered, “the boy has never been in a car before, has he?”The door of the van slammed shut, and the engine started..There were hundreds of journalists outside the courthouse and, surrounding them, a thick layer of wrath. The sound of angry voices traveled in murmuring waves towards him as he stepped out in the sun. Lucas suspected that this week’s paper had been filled with the most hideous descriptions of his persona, and he made his best effort to not make eye contact with anyone as he was escorted through the crowd. It was a strange experience, he thought, spending the very first moment basking in the light of the real world, surrounded by nothing but a yelling mob. Further, he guessed that he was to live without his medicine now. The pills that the guards served him every morning were to stop coming. He had never known exactly what those drugs did, but as the colors and sounds of the horde around him exploded in his mind, creating thousands of blinking stars shooting across his open eyes, he thought that life was likely to be much more vibrant from now on. The sounds seemed sharper. Every sensation clearer. Lucas and his entourage struggled up the stairs. Inside, the court building was brilliantly white, with a large skylight that illuminated the great entry hall. The moment the large doors closed behind them, muffling the sound from the outside, the guards stepped backwards and a new kind of custodian took their place..
“Lucas, my name is Zaman and I am to be your lawyer throughout the day’s proceedings”
Zaman was tall, and serious looking. Lucas could not help thinking that he sounded as if he was here to offer an apology and bad excuses. Twenty four years had Lucas been locked away, and not once had he heard the name Zaman before.
“I have tried to contact you on numerous occasions through your time incarcerated”, Zaman said, “but it seemed to me and my colleagues that you preferred to have no correspondence”, he held the door open as they entered another great hall with white marble walls. Lucas felt a ray of hope glimmer faintly in his chest. Zaman continued, “I know it has been a long time behind bars for you, but you have shown great behavior throughout…”
“Will that matter?”, Lucas interrupted.
Zaman gave him a crooked, but sympathetic, smile.
“I doubt it”.
.
With Zaman by his side, Lucas sat in the middle of the marble hall. In front of him was an open notebook and two feather pens. Their tips looked as if made by solid gold. Lucas wondered if he was expected to use them. He had practiced a lot of basic tasks in prison, but he was no writer. As the room around them filled with people, Zaman kept giving him reassuring looks, promising that it would all be over shortly. The six judges, all dressed in black with their dark blue caps covering the better part of their faces, were seated the moment the clock struck twelve. As soon as the last one of them had put down her briefcase on the table, the trial began.
.
Lucas shivered. An echo flew through the room. Murder.
Murder.
“Murder”.
The judge farthest to the right had leaned forward and spoken.
“Ah!”, Zaman reacted quickly, collecting his papers and standing up “But who? That, my fellow citizens, is the question we are here to answer today”. He spoke in a calm and controlled manner, every now and then turning to the other side of the room to face the curious audience.
“Twenty four years is a long time”, Zaman stated while nodding seriously, “but is it long enough for us to consider the most heinous crimes?”
It was almost eleven when he finished and the prosecutor took over. Lucas felt exhausted and drained, wanting nothing but to stand up and leave. The whispering of the onlookers made it difficult to focus, and the voices of the judges seemed distorted and slow. At some point, he was sure, someone was going to ask him a question, and he had very little to say to his defense. He felt like a scared animal clinging to the arm of Zaman, hoping that there was something this stranger could do or say to change what was about to happen.
.
It was ten, and the crowd gasped.
“A child ”, the prosecutor said.
“Out of the question”, Zaman responded, “Look at him. He is nothing but a child himself”
The prosecutor’s desk was a few meters to the side, and Lucas, dizzy from the stress and the bright light, could not see her clearly. But he heard her voice, sharp and clear and bouncing from the marble in all directions. He followed it with his eyes, as the sound of her words echoed around him, traveling from wall to wall and merging with the whispering of the audience and the low rumbling from the street outside.
The crowd gasped again. Lucas could see a man close his hand over his mouth and shake his head.
“A child”, she repeated, “A boy from Houston. He is only twelve.”
The legs of a chair dragged along the floor. Steps. A halt. The prosecutor had stood up and made her way across the room. Lucas had always known that today was going to be filled with humiliation and bad news. Still, as he sat in this white room, with blue eyes watching from every direction, a sense of shock crawled up his spine. The disgust radiating from the seats around him had managed to seep through his skin, penetrating his belly and grabbing a hold of his innards. He felt it too. Disgusted.
“A child of twelve. A murder in Houston”, she said a third time, now looking directly at Lucas. The gray haired woman had a wrinkle over her eyes that made her seem troubled rather than fierce. Somewhere in her face Lucas could sense a hint of empathy. The prosecutor felt sorry for him. He swallowed the sense of surprise, having been worried that he had lost his voice in the chaotic scenes unfolding in his mind.
“Why?”, he demanded to know.
“Lunacy”, she responded softly.
.
Zaman had been correct, the trial was over quicker than it had begun. By the time the prosecutor had presented the gruesome details of the case and the audience had choked on their disgust enough times, morning was creeping up on them, and the proceedings came to an end.
Murder. A twelve year old boy.
“It could have been worse”, Zaman said while standing up and stroking his suit jacket, “Trust me, Lucas, it could have been a lot worse”.
Lucas was not sure he could stand. His voice was breaking as he asked:
“Worse than a dead child?”
Zaman attempted a smile, but it looked more like a grimace. Before he walked out he put his hand on Lucas’ shoulder.
“We will stay in touch. We have things to plan and discuss”.
Lucas did not turn to look as Zaman left. Alone he sat by the desk in the middle of the room until the sky light made the walls glow in a purple morning hue. Only then a janitor approached him, with the same irritated expression once carried by a prison guard that Lucas was never to see again.
“You are free to go, son”, the janitor grunted, clearly annoyed by his presence, “How about you make use of that freedom and stop wasting space in my court?”
.
Outside, the air was different again. Cold, early morning surrounded him and the silence had replaced the commotion from earlier. Whatever feelings that had been boiling outside the courthouse during the day had died down now. People had gone home. The journalists had finished. No one was there. For a brief moment, Lucas thought about the things that awaited. He would need to make friends, find his family, maybe even get a girlfriend. He sighed. He was not feeling particularly excited about any of it. Slowly, he started walking aimlessly down the empty street. He could get a nice home, maybe. A job. Life was long, and he needed to spend it somehow. He had always wanted to see the ocean, and he was sure there were people that worked and lived in places where you got to look at it every day. Maybe that would suit him. As he passed through the blocks, the houses changed in character. The impressive marble of the law was replaced by broken bricks and mud roads. This was a poor area. He could tell how the cracks in the facades were slowly healing, rubble from the street carefully moving towards the gates of people’s homes and gardens. Sadness and defeat hung in the air and embraced him as he walked. One day, he thought to himself, he would live in a neighborhood very different from this one.
.
But first, there was something that needed to be done. He had spent twenty four years in prison, and time had come to pay for it. Whatever pills the guards had given him with his daily morning meal had left his system by now, and he felt a new strength entering his body. His mind was more awake than before, his hearing more attuned. He listened to the sound of his tongue moving against his teeth, enjoying the soft melody of saliva and bone. The noise seemed to come just as much from the inside of his head as from the actual physical world it belonged to. For a long time he stood still, biting his lips and licking the inside of his cheeks, enjoying the harmony it created. A rounded, silky clicking that slithered down the throat. Then he laughed to himself. No more stalling. He needed to get to Houston.
Futures of The Past – 1950s Sci-Fi – AI Microfilm
What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?
I was pretty small and thin in high school, but wanted to play football so I worked out a lot and was strong for my size, but still barely managed to stay on the team. One spring day a guy who was playing at working out made some obnoxious comments and dared me to come outside and fight him. Coach threw him out of the weight room and I though it was over. I saw him hanging out with some friends watching us go through drills, but didn’t really think abut it. Until I got on the athletic bus to go home and saw him sitting in the back with three friends. I was the only white kid who rode the athletic bus, in a school that had only integrated about ten years earlier, but it was never a problem before that day. I did what I usually did and sat near the front with a group of friends. The guy, Don Lee, and his friends started throwing paper balls at me. They didn’t have very good aim, so it was mostly my friends getting hit, but Don Lee though it was hilarious. I figured it wouldn’t stop until I went back and got my butt kicked like they wanted me to, so I got up to go to the back. My friends told me it wasn’t worth it, but I couldn’t let them take it for me. Then as I walked to back of the bus with Don Lee and his friends laughing about what they were going to do to me, someone put his hand on my shoulder. I turned to see two of the biggest guys in the school, Bird and Kelvin. Bird told me to get behind him and suddenly the bus went deadly quiet. Don Lee started to say something smart and Bird grabbed him by the collar so that his knuckles were under Don Lee’s chin and slammed his head into the roof of the bus. It was like a scene from a comic book with Don Lee going all glassy eyed and slack jawed. Then Bird said let’s go Luke (my nickname, from Lucan the wolf boy TV show of the time) they won’t mess with you again. The next day during practice Bird told me that he’d never seen a white boy willing to fight to protect black guys and he wouldn’t let me get messed up that way.
So sometimes it isn’t that the person you picked a fight with is that strong, but they might just have friends who are.
What do you think is the worst drug?
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but GABAPENTIN. I’m not sorry I’ve never tried cocaine, heroin, meth, crack, really anything beyond cannabis. Mushrooms once. I have enough trouble with dopamine as it is now, I cannot imagine something making that more difficult.
I took Gabapentin (Neurontin) for more than 4 years. I was taking it for a diagnosis of neuropathy, my left shoulder sucks from living, working, and it got way worse after open heart surgery at 39, I’m 46.
It has a mild soporific/anti-depressive effect, made me hurt a LOT less, but… knowing the long term effects and the considerable amount of heart and blood pressure meds made me want off of it pronto.
I went to my pain doc after deciding to come off of it. Weaning myself off of it was pure, unadulterated hell. That garbage is dangerous coming out, and from mood changes to stomach aches, to dizziness and blurred vision, and from all-day nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, that part was easy. Halfway through the process of weaning, I had body pain that was *insane* for about 72 hours, and then it seemed to be way less stressful after.
Some side effects while ON gabapentin:
Loss of libido in a huge way
Coordination and a strange gait.
Miss a dose? Get ready.
Loss of alertness because you are so damned tired all the time
Problems waking up (that have persisted after use)
I felt like I mumbled a lot, and my speech sometimes seemed slurred to me. I can’t imagine what I sounded like to a normal person.
Persistent dosing time: I had to make sure that I was taking it the same times, every day, every week, every month. Three times per day, 900mg a dose.
You can be an irritable bastard prior to getting that first dose in.
Some days, you are engulfed in a sadness that does not subside, seemingly that whole day.
Now,I also can look forward to some just purely depressing long-term side effects being NOT on Gabapentin:
Memory degradation. My short recall is pure sh*t sometimes.
Pain. Every single day from waking to sleeping, my shoulder hurts sometimes to the point where I get little akathisia (this inner restlessness that makes me have an almost “tick” to move my shoulder. So strange and unnerving. It seems to increase as my stress/anxiety increases.
Organ damage, brain and liver damage
Very weird respiratory depression
A foggy feeling sometimes
Gabapentin sucks. Please, take my story and have something else chosen for you.
China’s New Generation of Hypersonic Weapons Can Encircle the U.S. Military
What’s something small that happened in your life that everyone else probably forgot about but had a big impact on you?
**Edited to add** While I appreciate the people who took time to read and suggest edits, I am not doing this. All edits outside of basic spelling will be discarded. I’m sorry I have to explain this but I wrote this from my own perspective as a child. No child has perfect grammar. If you feel the need to change, delete entire paragraphs I suggest you please write your own story. This is mine.
************
I was with my mother and older sister in the grocery store. Kindergarten age, all big eyes and watchful quiet. I didn’t talk much, even then. I may have been small but I’d already learned that speaking only increased the pain.
My older sister had wandered off, but I stood right by mother. If I moved, even to see where sister had gone, I’d get beat later for misbehaving. It was just like me to cause problems. So I walked behind her like a little shadow. Careful, always careful to stay out of the way.
An older lady approached my mom and complimented her on how I behaved. She wore a housecoat and gray hair, just like a grandma on tv. This was so very weird – I never ever got told I did something good. I peeked out at her from behind my mom. She saw me and said “Oh how pretty she is! Look at those big eyes and long long eyelashes.” I smiled then…in my whole life no one had told me I was pretty without it being proceeded by severe pain. She made another compliment about my smile and I guess that was too much.
My mom interrupted and said “Oh you should see my other daughter. She’s the real beauty and so very good. This one’s just trouble”. My smile faded away and I looked down at my shoes. They hurt anyway, were too small. They’d been my sisters that got handed to me when she didn’t like the color anymore. They were old and scuffed and I was sure I’d be in trouble later. I never could figure out how to make the old shoes look like the new ones my sister wore.
The lady went around my mom and came and looked down at me. She said in a firm voice that allowed no disbelief “You are good too”. Then she smiled at me – just at me! and went on with her day.
She didn’t know it and neither did I, but that was when I first started to question how things had always been. When I was scrubbing the bathroom and my sister was outside because she was good enough to play I remembered it. When I got in trouble because my older sister did something and I didn’t stop her I’d remember that. Those little words got me through a lot of things and helped me learn that maybe I didn’t deserve what happened to me.
“You are good too”, such a little sentence but it started such a change in me.
What can you do to honor your wife when it is almost too late?
At about eleven years into our marriage, we were in big trouble. We were in our living room, both crying (my husband doesn’t cry, he was a Marine), and sitting in abject, defeated silence, as there was nothing left to say. It was dead. We failed. We were over. Too much pain.
Suddenly, I had an idea. I said, “OK, if this marriage is dead, let’s give it a damn funeral. And you know what? Who says we can’t marry each other again and start a new relationship?”
My husband looked at me and said, “Well, that’s just crazy enough to possibly work.”
We took off our rings. We wrote scathing eulogies to the first marriage. “Dear first marriage, I don’t know how you managed to both suck and blow, but die in a fucking fire….” We proceeded to speak to each other about our “exes,” complaining about all of the crap they did to us. “My ex left his damn socks on the floor ALL THE TIME.” “Oh, yeah, well MY ex threw temper tantrums about stupid shit.”
We lit candles. We created sacred space. We smudged our rings in sage smoke, and we said off-the-cuff vows to one another.
“I promise not to leave my socks on the floor”
“I promise not to wait until I can’t take something anymore and then yell at you”
We put our rings back on, we tied our hands together with our original handfasting cord after smudging it and adding things to it. We kissed. We made love. A lot.
We never spoke of it again. Almost twenty years strong, we are. We still make love. A lot.
Why US and West scared of China and Russia in Africa
Mediterranean Steak and Pasta with Tomato-Olive Sauce
Whole-wheat pasta is served with beef Sirloin Tip Center Steaks and a tomato and olive sauce. This one will please the adults and the kids in your family.
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Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
8 ounces uncooked whole grain fettuccine
4 beef Sirloin Tip Center Steaks, cut 3/4 inch thick (about 4 ounces each)
1 (26 ounce) jar pasta sauce with olives*
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves, crushed
1/4 cup finely shredded Italian cheese blend or mozzarella cheese
2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
Instructions
Cook fettuccine according to package directions; drain and keep warm.
Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until hot. Place beef steaks in skillet; cook for 11 to 13 minutes for medium rare (145 degrees F) doneness, turning occasionally. (Do not overcook.) Remove from skillet; keep warm.
Combine pasta sauce and oregano in same skillet; heat until hot. Return steaks to skillet; turn to coat with sauce.
Place steaks on fettuccine; spoon sauce over all.
Sprinkle steaks with cheese, allowing cheese to melt. Sprinkle with parsley.
Notes
* You may substitute 1 (26 ounce) jar pasta sauce with olives for 1 (26 ounce) pasta sauce + 1/4 cup chopped olives.
Nutrition
Per serving: 474 Calories; 99.9 Calories from fat; 11.1g Total Fat (3.7g Saturated Fat; 0.2g Trans Fat; 0.3g Polyunsaturated Fat; 2.3g Monounsaturated Fat;) 71mg Cholesterol; 766mg Sodium; 54g Total Carbohydrate; 10.1g Dietary Fiber; 37g Protein; 6.2mg Iron; 332mg Potassium; 4.5mg NE Niacin; 0.4mg Vitamin B6; 2.8mcg Vitamin B12; 5.9mg Zinc; 33.6mcg Selenium; 90.1mg Choline
This recipe is an excellent source of Dietary Fiber, Protein, Iron, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, Zinc, and Selenium; and a good source of Choline.
What goes through the mind of Chinese citizens when they travel out of China and end up on the internet seeing uncensored speech and negative factual news about the CCP?
Most Chinese foreign students I have met here in the US are shocked.
Not because they learned anything shocking about their country or government. It’s because they see how mainstream Western media present lies after lies about their home country. The place where they grew up.
As a result, most of them become more nationalistic after spending some time in the US.
You don’t have to believe me. Befriend Chinese foreign students in your city, I assume you’re a Westerner, and slowly ask their opinions of the Western mainstream media coverage of China. If they trust you, they will tell you truthfully what they think.
EDIT: I have deleted some comments from trolls and people who just want to have meaningless internet debates. If you ever use the words “wumao” or “fifty cents”, your comment will be deleted.
A stray dog rescues a buried stray cat—truly astonishing!
When you were a kid, who gave you an unforgettable Christmas present?
I have six siblings. My dad had a pretty good job that must have brought in decent money, but he and my mom (who was a homemaker) had seven kids to feed and clothe.
Every couple of months, my mom would receive bags of hand-me-downs from my cousins. It was fun sorting through the piles of clothes. I never gave up hope that something on-trend would make an appearance. Needless to say, that never happened. So, I was always attired in dated, usually over-sized clothing (it didn’t help that I was a scrawny little thing).
The Christmas I was in Grade Six, my oldest brother was working full time. He was the type of big brother that you see in the movies . . . kind, patient and generous. Many times on a Friday night he’d show up with chips and pop (a rare treat) for us kids.
On December 23rd, he showed up with a pile of beautifully wrapped gifts. I was thrilled beyond belief just by the presentation. On Christmas morning, I carefully untied the beautiful ribbon, and slid my small fingers along the seams. I savored each delicious moment of the unwrapping process.
When I finally unveiled the box, I held my breath and slowly opened it. First I pulled out a beautiful, soft, red turtleneck sweater. Hidden beneath a layer of tissue paper, I saw a tan-coloured something peeking out. It was a faux-leather jumper (a sleeveless dress), complete with a belt. The entire ensemble fit me like a glove. It was on-trend, and I was over the moon.
For the first time in my young life, I could wear a new outfit (one that actually fit) to school. I can still remember how thrilling it was to wear that gorgeous outfit. My big brother is a kind and gentle man with a family of his own, and I hold him in the highest regard.
What are some aspects of Chinese culture that may seem odd or strange to an American visiting China for the first time?
My American customer told me,
he was shocked about :
“Chinese kids are allowed to drink wine”
I told him,my grandpa forced me to drink wine when I was 6 yrs old, while my Muslim grandma encouraging me at the same table.
China is sometime so wired even for Chinese.
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What do inmates do to survive prison without going insane?
I remember going into prison, I was facing a 10 year sentence for drugs and pretty down on myself over it. But someone said something to me at the start of my stay that has stuck with me ever since.
“Every day you need some kind of victory, be it physical, mental, or spiritual. Every day, have some victory big or small.”
I don’t know if I really understood him fully at the time, but he had been in and out of the system for his entire life.
In prison, I did alot of pushups and I read alot of books. I fought noone when I could, and anyone when I had to. I played the games, chess, dominoes, cards, basketball, I even learned d&d. I made friends and i made enemies. I faced boredom and some of the most challenging situations of my life. I faced myself in the mirror, the good parts and the ugly parts. I learned alot about myself there.
Something else I remember thinking alot, almost as a mantra is a quote from the movie nacho libre. When the orphan kid is trying to comfort him and he tells him “I’ll have my hot day in the sun” there’s alot of opportunity to make your time slightly easier. Drugs of course, getting stuck watching TV, but really I’m talking about turning away from what you belive is right. It’s easy to compromise your morals in a place like that. But I had my hot day in the sun. In the long run, I think that’s better.
Just like in the real world there are alot of things you can’t control there, and there isn’t always a clear path forward… When there is you know what to do. But when there isn’t, you can still have a small victory everyday. Workout, learn something, face yourself and decide who you want to be going forward, meditate, pray, do something worth doing.
I ended up doing 3 years and 10 months before I made parole. And it’s been almost that long I’ve been out. All in all I feel like prison gave me the opportunity to become who I am now. There’s alot of people in there that got alot more time than I did. But if I had to do more, I’d try and live by that same advice ol shake gave me.
I still try and live by it now.
Anyway I’ve never done this before so thanks for reading.
I DISCOVERED MY CAT’S SECRET PURPOSE AND WHERE THEY GO AFTER PETS DIE
Last night I had very active dreams. I think that I am experiencing my own mortality. As I was dreaming about all my elementary and middle-school pals from back in the day.
Ah everyone is retired. Except me, I guess. I’m still plugging away at it all.
As you get older you have issues. Blood pressure, stomach, teeth, and what not. A number of my old classroom friends now wear dentures and have snow white hair. Some walk with a cane. *sigh*
Not me, but I wonder…
Here in China the old men tend to walk alone in a stroll with the hands clasped behind their backs. I saw one guy on the buss, and he was talking to his wife (I guess) and he was 56, and newly retired. He looked old. Much older than myself. Yet he was almost twenty years younger than myself. Sheech!
I got off and then went to pick up my car so that I could get my daughter from kindergarten. Aside from the aches and pains that come with aging, I don’t feel like an old man. I feel maybe a little exhausted at times, but not really old.
You’ll soon see that I will need an afternoon nap. Ah. Already I wake up at the crack of dawn and I do go to bed earlier. I don’t eat as much as I used to. In fact, a bowl of soup and half a sandwich would do me just fine. While back in the day, I ate everything on sight.
Changes.
We all go through changes. Soon it will be your turn. Enjoy what you have NOW. Do not wait for that “sometime” in the future when things will all be set. It will never happen. You have accept where you are at the moment. And make the best of it. No, it’s never perfect, but often it’s “good enough”. So relish in that truth.
I am not sad, nor gloomy.
Just had a roller-coaster of dreams. Times change. But many of my old school mates stayed the same and did not adapt. Success is a matter of adaptation. Adapt or die.
Today…
When have you fired someone on the spot?
Originally Answered: Have you ever fired someone on the spot? If so, why?
I had one employee accuse another of raping her. They had been at a trade show in Las Vegas and afterward she had come into my office and made the accusation. I had not gone to the show, and had received various reports of bad behavior on her part, including a long-time customer who called me and told me that she was behaving inappropriately toward him. She had also stayed behind in Vegas after everyone else left and kept charging the room to the company credit card until I called the hotel and told them that she had no authorization to do that and they threw her out.
Obviously, she was going to get fired, but her accusation threw a giant monkey wrench into that plan. To bad behavior and incredibly poor judgement solely on her part, suddenly I have an felony accusation from her to deal with. Just as suddenly, I felt like I was in a mine field.
The first thing I did is tell her, this is not something you complain to your boss about, this is something you call the police about. So she did. Now there are many, many more mines in the mine field.
So I suspended them both without pay, her for her behavior during the show, and him in response to the accusation. I felt I had to be absolutely fair to them in spite of the fact that I wanted to throttle them both until their eyes popped out of their heads and rolled around on the floor.
The police declined to prosecute for lack of evidence. So the slimy, stinky, miserable ball was back in my court.
I never, ever want to take such an accusation as anything but serious. Truthfully, I never thought about how it would look if I didn’t, I always thought about how I would feel about myself if I didn’t, and acted accordingly. As profoundly self-destructive, and vindictive, and manipulative as the accuser was, I needed to find peace with her accusation before I could move on to deal with her incredibly bad behavior in other areas. There was a chance that her terrible judgement during the trade show was a response to her having been raped. She said she didn’t leave with everyone else because she didn’t want to be in the same car as him. At the same time, she was in the hotel for days charging room service to the company credit card, having told my VP, the supervisor for the show, that she would find her own way home and not telling him why, and not telling him she was going to stay behind on the company’s dime.
So the police, by declining to investigate beyond a simple set of interviews, made it my investigation. I am not trained in law enforcement, and I very much felt that I was put in the position of having to come to some sort of conclusion about a felony.
So I resolved to be as objective as possible. I created two confidential files on each of the people involved. I put them in a manila file folder with their names, and plainly marked each as confidential. As part of their suspensions, each was instructed to not come to the office or contact me during my investigation.
You might be asking, why did I feel the need to investigate? Because obviously one or the other had to go. My company had six employees, it was untenable for one to have accused another of rape and leave that accusation unresolved without making the company dysfunctional. I simply could not get my head around that concept. But I had no idea — none — how things would work out. I was simply trying to move forward without stepping on a mine.
So I filled these files with documentation supporting an assumed resolution where one or both of these employees would be terminated. If that were my decision, I would have to defend it, possibly in court. I called that customer, for instance, who had complained to me about her, and interviewed him in more detail about what her behavior was. I researched all the unauthorized credit card charges on the company card, I researched and found many other instances of bad behavior and poor judgement on her part.
In his file, I researched the same sort of things, but truthfully, there were many fewer of them. He was an idiot, but he wasn’t so destructive, at least purposefully.
And you ask, what complete imbecile hired these people? No comment.
At one point, a few days later, I put her file down on my desk and left my office to deal with some other business issue that had mercifully presented itself. When I got back to my office there she was, with her file in her hands, looking through it. She accused me of having predetermined to fire her. I told her 1) You were instructed not to come to the office during the period of your suspension and you did anyway, 2) You entered my office when I was not present, and 3) You read a file that was clearly marked confidential. You’re done.
About an hour later, the other employee called me and told me he had found another job.
Within an hour, the worst minefield of my professional life had cleared. Profound tension was replaced by chirping birds, daisies, and cool breezes.
To this day I think about that experience. What should I have done differently? How could I have handled it better? I’m sure there are better ways. I have a decent grasp of employment law but I’m not an attorney. I had the intention of consulting an attorney but I wanted to wait until the investigation was further along, so in the end I navigated this issue without any legal counsel, which probably wasn’t the brightest thing to do but then again I’m the one who hired these people in the first place, so maybe that’s par for the course.
I’ve never been in combat, but the memory almost seems like that. Mines and all.
Scott Ritter : Is Israel Prepared for a Three-Front War?
What happened in a courtroom that gave the judge a belly laugh you will never forget?
Back in the 70’s during the gasoline (ahem) shortage and reduced Max speed limit on the highway, I was passing a heard of slow pokes at about 60, and along with two other vehicles got motioned over by a motor officer.
The office came up to my window, stated he didn’t like this situation either but if I didn’t complain and coughed up all the required documents that I would be on my way in less than five as one of the other two drivers wanted to argue. I was outta there in two minutes.
Showed up extremely early in court and then the place starting filling up with a line that formed out the door and down the street.
The judge came in, states he didn’t like the situation (I heard that somewhere before) and said that if we cooperated that it would only take a few seconds for each of us to get squared away. He then raised his voice and announced that with our cooperation that he could get the court room cleared in 30 minutes.
The judge gave the options and told us to state which option we wanted when asked. Judge added that when asked, if you did not spit out your choice that he would roll your case to the end of the line
The very first person called, when asked by the judge what their choice was going to be, then said he didn’t like any of the choices and the whole situation was BS. The judge, along with the packed court room crowd, sent that guy to the end of the line down the street once the laughing stopped.
The next person in line went stupid like a missile that lost radar lock and got sent to the end of the line too.
I was third in line. When my turn came and the judge asked for my choice with a smile. I smiled back and said, guilty-traffic-school-fine-I-don’t-wanna-go-to-the-end-of-the-line.
The judge laughed again and the crowd only started laughing after the judge did.
The judge then told me to see the court clerk to pay up and get traffic court information.
The judge then told the crowd, after pointing his finger at me that was what he was talking about when he sat down in his chair.
Discovery
Two girls from a hotel management college in Qingdao, Shandong Province, went out and found a handbag containing five gold bars and two gold ingots, totaling 500g of gold. They immediately reported it to the police. After checking, the police found a car key in the bag with the owner’s phone number on it and were able to contact the owner.
Oh, and also two lighters by the way. Smoking harms health.
Mother FALSELY ACCUSED Her HUSBAND Of Having MOLESTED Her DAUGHTER For 15 YEARS! | Pearl Daily
China is falling behind the US in the AI race, since China doesn’t have any answer to Nvidia, ChatGPT & worldwide data of US companies. How will China deal with this defeat?
US and China have entirely different approaches to AI development
The US is focusing on the very high end aspects of AI
China is focusing on the basic, low end aspects of AI and expecting to scale the progress to higher and higher end aspects of AI over the years
China is training their AI Models in four areas :
A. Industrial Robotics
B. Healthcare
C. Manufacturing
D. Education
Very basic AI Models, nothing complicated, yet capable of revolutionizing efficiency and making life easier for the common man
These models exist all over China
Intelligent Systems that can help with designs, manufacturing and production
Intelligent systems that can diagnose diseases and suggest treatment lines
Intelligent systems that can instruct and guide students
China has the Data of 1.4 Billion People
The Data is roughly estimated to be 44 Zetta Bytes or 44 Trillion Giga Bytes
This is Four times larger than the US which has 11.6 Zetta Bytes
Chinas Data Collection access is 97%
US Data Collection access is 23% due to privacy laws
So effectively China has access to 20 times as much Data as the United States
An AI System needs hardware but it needs a huge amount of Data as well to establish predictive analytics
Thus these are the two main features of Chinas AI Development:-
A. The Mushroom approach
B. Huge amount of Data collection
The focus is on the lowest aspects of public life and use public interaction to further enhance or develop AI Models
Is China behind the US in AI?
Not at all
ChatGPT is a novelty or a fad
It’s not a critical pioneering move into AI
The AI race is like the Nuclear Atom Bomb race
You had two approaches
In the same way China and US have their own approaches to develop AI
The Race has just started
The Great Pyramid Mystery: The Oldest Cover-Up In History
The son went to the dealership, came back to his father and said, “They offered me $10,000 because it looks very used.” The father said, “Take it to a pawn shop.”
The son went to the pawn shop, came back and said, “They only offered me $1,000 because they say it is too old.”
Finally, the father asked his son to take the car to a classic car club and show it there. The son took the car to the club, came back and said, “Some people at the club offered me $100,000! because it is a very rare car and sought after among the members.”
The father said to his son, “I wanted you to understand that the right place appreciates you in the right way. If they don’t value you, don’t be angry, it just means you’re in the wrong place. Those who know your value are the ones who truly appreciate you. Never stay in a place where they don’t recognize your value!”
Why do gun nuts keep saying that the AR-15 is not an assault rifle when it was originally designed for and issued to military servicemen? Do they not know the origins of this weapon that they defend?
No, it was not originally designed as a military weapon. The designer was Eugene Stoner. He was a partner in the Armalite Rifle Company (that’s where the AR comes from). It was actually the AR-10 that he figured the military would want because it was a lighter version of the varies 30 caliber rifles used in WWII. But the military was not interested. The AR-15 rifle came about when he heard that Remington was developing the 223 caliber cartridge and was speculating that a more powerful version of a 22 caliber would sell to dad’s wanting a rifle for their sons to hunt small game. Stoner figured he had the other half of the equation – a lightweight rifle, easy for those young sons to carry.
Armalite was purchased by Fairchild Aviation and they attempted to market both the AR-10 and AR-15 to the Airforce. The Airforce bought 15,000 of them, but the program pretty much died after the initial purchase. It was not until Colt bought the designs in 1959. Colt understood how to make the designs into military grade weapons. Colt launched the Colt 601, 602, & 603 models. The Colt 603 is what became the military M16A1 in 1967. It resembled the AR-15 in looks, but the design modifications were extensive. Most notably, it can fire in automatic mode (a machine gun), or in a 3 bullet burst, or in semi-automatic mode. It also uses the more powerful 5.56mm cartridge (same basic bullet diameter as the 223 but measured in millimeters.
Colt kept the old AR-15 design and brought if out as the AR-15 Sporter. A civilian rifle for that dad with a young son he was teaching to hunt. It met with great opposition, until the kids of returning Vietnam war veterans saw it and wanted it because it looked like the gun dad fought with.
I am not a gun nut. I am an historian. There are countless stories about the AR-15, most don’t get it right. But I have seen most of original documents on the gun, patent filings, and letters of rejection from the military. In the early 50’s a low caliber gun like the AR-15 could not possibly of succeeded in the military. Their mindset was large bullets make one shot kills.
You would do well to learn your history through actual research, before you start calling people nuts and embarrassing yourself with garbage opinions you read on-line.
Sakura whirled round at the sound of familiar footsteps, to see her closest friend, Yuto, running towards her – chased by the Restriction, which were only a few metres behind him. She opened her mouth to say something before realising that what she wanted to ask, What’s happening? – or more accurately, Why are they trying to get you? – wasn’t one of her speech options. She made do with a surprised open of her eyes accompanied by a questioning raise of her eyebrows.Thankfully, Yuto understood what she was trying to say. He pointed to his mouth and made a cross with his hands as he ran past her, the Restriction drones still chasing him with their antennae flashing red.Sakura turned and began running beside him, unsure of what else she should do.No. Yuto couldn’t mean… he couldn’t have said a non-option word. Sakura shook her head and mimed the gesture for Try again. He must have forgotten or misused a gesture – but he couldn’t have. They’d practised non-verbal communication together for hours in case they wanted to tell each other something that wasn’t a speech option. He had learnt the signs faster than she had. He couldn’t have made a mistake.Sure enough, Yuto repeated the communication with the same gestures. There was no doubt about it – he had said a non-option word. Why had he been so stupid, when he was normally so careful?Sakura mimed Thinking before outwardly shutting herself off. Her legs kept running beside him as if on auto mode as she considered what to do about the situation.After a moment of hard thinking, she snapped out of it and winced. She’d made her decision. It would be painful for both of them, but it was best. With shaky movements, she told him to stop running.An expression of panic took over Yuto’s face. Not you too? he gestured.You know I’d never do that, she mimed, hurt. I meant, they’re going to get you eventually. She pointed to the still-following Restriction, who were visibly catching up. They’ll force less time on you if you stop running now and try to look sorry for the word.Yuto laughed bitterly. Sakura winced again – had he forgotten their mind-chips monitored any noise out of their voice-box, not just words?It was more than a word, Yuto gestured.Oddly enough, this didn’t surprise Sakura. She knew Yuto well enough to know that if he lost his caution, he lost it completely. What was it, then? she asked. A sentence?I’ll tell you when I get out. And Yuto stopped running.It only took a small wave from her friend to make Sakura run on. She looked back with apprehension as the Restriction gathered around Yuto and separated his atoms to prepare him for the travel to his cell. She shook the word cell out of her head – it was safest not to use dangerous terms, in case they came out. They weren’t taking him to a cell. They were taking him to… a holding centre, so they could talk to him, make sure he didn’t want to start a rebellion. They might tie him up. Test him, hurt him, warp his senses and thoughts to muddle him, make him go almost insane, to force him to give them the answers they wanted, even though he couldn’t even give them since he didn’t know anything.She paused. Took a deep breath. Worrying wouldn’t help her. It wouldn’t help either of them.Before reaching home, she came across her older brother. She started, and ran towards him with a smile on her face. She hadn’t seen Kazuya for days, and she’d began to be scared in case her brother had been taken. It was an irrational fear, she knew, given Kazuya’s perfect conformance record, but it didn’t stop her worrying.
She waved, mentally selecting the second ‘informal’ speech option. “Hi Kazuya!”
Kazuya smiled back at her. “Hi.”
Sakura searched her options for something that would get her message across, finally settling on the eighth. “How have you been?”
“I left on a business trip,” her brother replied almost instantly. Sakura envied his swiftness at choosing options – but then again, she would rather be herself, a slower-speaking individual, than him, a conformist who lived entirely on the Restriction’s rules. She pushed the thoughts away; she loved him, despite what the Restriction had turned him into. She did.
There was an awkward silence as Sakura searched the options for something appropriate for the occasion. “I’ve missed you,” she said awkwardly, at last.
“I’ve missed you too.” It was said automatically, as if it was the only speech option. As if it was a necessity, not a choice.
What if he’s been fully turned? Sakura thought as her brother walked away. She stiffened. What had she just thought? What if…
It was a beautiful pair of words, when she thought about it. But she’d never thought about it before, because she’d never thought it before. What if… It was an exciting sentence fragment. Could I… There was another one. Something in the back of her brain told her these were questions, but they weren’t like any questions she’d ever asked before.
Now she knew.
Her mind whirred as she made her way home. On recognising her mind-chip, her front door slid open. She walked through it, barely noticing the slight delay in its closing time.
Up in her room, she forced her mind onto her chip. She’d practised it so many times with Yuto. It had to work.
Focus. Focus on the chip. On its functions, on its existence. She repeated it like a mantra for an agonising minute before, finally, she felt something snap.
It hurt. It hurt as if part of her brain had been set on fire, but she remained steadfast, not allowing her thoughts to sway from the chip. When the fire died, she opened her eyes. She hadn’t even realised they were closed.
She knew the best way to test if the split from her chip had worked. There were no speech options when she was alone, so all she needed to do was say something. Anything would prove her chip had been successfully disconnected.
She opened her mouth. “Sakura.”
The code-word activated her bedroom’s hidden room – a safe place to hide anything she didn’t want the Restriction to find. The wall slid aside and slid back once she had entered.
Inside the room, lay a simple wooden desk, with a crude wooden chair in front of it. Sakura dropped into it thankfully. She rummaged through the vintage drawers and finally drew out a battered, crumpled piece of paper. She paused for a moment to enjoy the memory of her father that always came with the sight of that paper. He’d spent his last year teaching her to write so she could eventually use it, but he’d never told her what she would do with it. The most he’d said was that she would have to learn for herself if she wanted it to be useful.
With What if… readily in her mind, she knew what to do. She knew why the Restriction executed those who knew how to write. Knew why they gave everyone speech options instead of letting them talk how they wanted to. And best of all, she knew how to free herself from their bonds.
Gently, she placed the ragged paper on the desk and smoothed it out with one hand, using her other to search the drawer for a pencil – another of her father’s forbidden items. She placed it on the desk beside the paper, and took a deep breath. This was it. She could – she would – write, and she knew what to write.
She picked up the pen. Positioned it between her fingers the way her father had instructed. Bent down to the paper, and began.
The events have taken a very strange turn in Washington DC this month. Britain’s new cabinet has made it a priority to escalate the West’s proxy war against Russia and to bring the U.S. and other allies onboard by hook or by crook. Part of the agenda was enabling the Ukrainians to strike at Russia with western supplied long-range precision missiles. This wouldn’t be a new thing exactly, but the escalation they are gunning for is quite substantial, involving possibly even nuclear weapons.
The groundwork for this escalation was being prepared for months. In March this year, the Biden administration approved a new “Nuclear Employment Guidance” in preparation to fight and “win” a three-front nuclear war against Russia, China and North Korea. They followed up with plans to deploy long-range nuclear missiles in Germany and Holland. The preparations were being coordinated between the Neocons in the Biden administration, led by the Secretary of State Antony Blinken, NATO and the members of British cabinets, both under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and under the new PM Keir Starmer.
Starmer’s diplomatic charm offensive
Since its inauguration on July 5, 2024, the new Labour government in Britain immediately engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity and meetings with many government leaders across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, much of it a charm offensive to “reset” the previously strained or neglected relationships. Within the cabinet’s first ten days, their Defence Minister John Healey visited Ukraine, Foreign Minister Lammy called his Ukrainian and American counterparts on his first day on the job, then on July 6 flew straight to Germany to meet with the German FM Annalena Baerbock, then to Poland the next day to meet with FM Radek Sikorski, and after that, straight to Sweden to meet then FM Tobias Billstrom.
On July 9, his fifth day on the job, Keir Starmer flew to Washington for the NATO summit and a meeting with president Biden. On July 16, Starmer’s government published the new “Strategic Defense Review” – a “root and branch” revision of UK’s defence, so that it is “secure at home and strong abroad for decades to come.” Of course, all these ambitious initiatives ultimately depend on the special relationship itself. Without it, Britain would be punching way, way above its weight.
Trump-proofing the “special relationship”
In terms of military power, the UK is pretty much a lightweight with a handicap, so securing the American protection was top priority. Accordingly, the Mutual Defense Agreement (MDA) between the U.S. and Great Britain needed an urgent upgrade. The agreement was last renewed in 2014 and was set to expire on 31 December 2024. The new major upgrade was formulated by the British government in July of this year: it would make the MDA indefinite, turning it into a de-facto treaty. The idea was to Trump-proof the Agreement in case the DNC fails to steal the presidential elections again this November. The treaty also joins the two nations’ nuclear programs.
Indeed, the nuclear saber-rattling does seem to emanate largely from out of London. For example, Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Britain’s oldest and most prestigious think-tank, proposed already in 2022 that the West should resort to nuclear brinkmanship in order to destabilize Russia. It was this same Malcolm Chalmers who was jubilant about the new Mutual Defense Agreement, seeing it as a diplomatic win for the UK: “It is good news for the UK that it doesn’t need to worry about a future US administration using a future renewal [of the MDA] as leverage.” How clever! Now we can stir the pot around the world and if things get ugly, the Americans have to come to our rescue. This is a good position from which to manipulate the U.S. into fighting Britain’s wars of choice.
This episode once more reinforces the impression that the “special relationship” between the US and the UK is a Master-Blaster arrangement (for those old enough to remember Master-Blaster from the movie Mad Max 3). In this arrangement, Blaster is the powerful, muscular giant who is manipulated around by his Master, a vicious old dwarf riding on the giant’s back. Once you start to pay attention to this dynamic, you’ll find more and more evidence that the drive and the ideas shaping the west’s permanent wars, especially against Russia, originate from London.
Parading the alliance
All the diplomatic activity under the Starmer government also involved much public parading of the “special relationship” with the view of projecting the image of a powerful, rock-solid alliance that remains 100% committed to defending the international “rules-based order” and intimidating any uppity newcomer who would dare to challenge it. On 7 September we saw, for the first time ever, Sir Richard Moore, the head of Britain’s MI6, and William Burns the CIA chief, appear together and on stage!
The body language is interesting: CIA’s Burns’s body is turned away, legs crossed and arms folded, looking at Moore over his shoulder. Sir Richard’s open, facing Burns and the audience directly.
For anyone who missed the occasion, the talented Mr. Moore published a tweet about it, linking to the video recording of the event. Two days later, the pair published an OpEd in the Financial Times, waxing eloquent about the threats to the rules based order and how to defend it. Most importantly, they expressed their iron-clad commitment to defending Ukraine for as long as it takes.
The following day, on 10 September, US State Secretary Antony Blinken came to London to meet with his British counterpartDavid Lammy and the day after they both went to visit Kiev together. On the occasion, Blinken and Lammy almost certainly finalized the plan to commit both nations to aiding Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with western-supplied long range precision missiles. Only two days later, the Prime Minister Starmer flew to Washington again to meet with President Biden, ostensibly to “discuss” the events in Ukraine among other things.
Something went wrong in Washington
Now, the Prime Minister wouldn’t normally travel and meet with his U.S. counterpart just to “discuss” things. Their meeting would take place only at the point when the agreement could be signed and announced in a joint press conference: a public showing of their unity, shared objectives and determination. In fact, according to British government sources, the decisions had already been made, and Sir Keir brought all the paperwork with him. However, the signing ceremony never took place and neither did the joint press conference. Something went wrong.
The awkward meeting didn’t produce the ceremonial signing or the joint press conference.
It appears that the U.S. military leadership took Vladimir Putin‘s warning about this escalation seriously. His words are worth pondering carefully:
“There is an attempt to substitute concepts. Because we are not talking about authorizing or banning the Kiev regime from striking across the entire territory. They are already striking with the help of drones and other means. … The Ukrainian army is not able to strike with modern long-range precision systems of Western manufacture. It cannot do this. It can only do so using intelligence from satellites, which Ukraine does not have. This is data only from EU satellites or from the United States in general, from NATO satellites. … And so this is not about allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike. It is about deciding whether NATO countries are directly involved or not. If this decision is made, it will mean nothing other than the direct participation of NATO countries, the United States, European countries in the war in Ukraine. This is their direct participation. And this already, of course, significantly changes the very essence, the nature of the conflict. This would mean that NATO, US and the European countries, the United States are at war with Russia. If that is the case, then bearing in mind the change in the very essence of this conflict, we will take appropriate decisions based on the threats that will be posed to us.”
According to some sources, Putin’s warning was reinforced through back-channel communications between the Russian military leadership and their American counterparts who understand that they were being pushed over the edge of total war. In response, it seems that the American military leadership took over the conduct of the US foreign policy, both in terms of military and diplomatic affairs. State Secretary Blinken and his merry band of Neocons appear to have been sidelined. This is why the US-UK agreement to escalate against Russia didn’t get the Blaster’s signature.
The change in leadership could also be felt in the Middle East. General Michael E. Kurilla, the head of U.S. Central Command visited Israel last week (the second time in a week’s interval), apparently also to announce a new policy. Allegedly, he informed the Israelis that if they provoke a war against Hezbollah or against Iran, the U.S. will not come to their aid: they’re on their own.
The palace coup at the White House wasn’t officially announced and it almost certainly won’t be. We will probably only know of these changes with time, by observing the pattern of events. If the U.S. policy really changes course in a substantive way, this would corroborate that the coup did indeed take place. This may seem inconceivable, but it shouldn’t be. Secretary Blinken has been conducting a truly insane foreign policy, inflicting massive damage to the United States in material, strategic as well as reputational terms. Such conduct would unavoidably provoke disapproval and opposition within the ranks of the American defense and foreign policy establishments.
Judge Humbles Woman Who Divorced A Millionaire
This is Texas.
Oh boy is that Judge is pissed.
When Hitler’s general staff mutinied in 1938
The latest escalation, concocted with the British, would put the U.S. in severe jeopardy. The burden of coping with the resulting fallout would fall squarely on the military. At the same time, it remains unclear what, if anything, could be gained from Starmer’s and Blinken’s reckless adventurism. This is a textbook recipe for provoking a mutiny, and such mutinies do tend to happen at critical junctures throughout history.
For example, when, on 21 April 1938 Hitler ordered General Wilhelm Keitel to draft plans to invade Czechoslovakia, German military brass were deeply alarmed – so much so that a group of top commanders, clustered around Hitler’s Chief of the General Staff, General Ludwig Beck, hatched a three phase strategy to disrupt Hitler’s reckless pursuit: (1) they would try to dissuade Hitler from pursuing his plans; (2) they implored the British to stand firmly by Czechoslovakia and warn Hitler that Britain would oppose him; and (3) if Hitler persisted in his resolve to wage war, they would proceed to assassinate him. The date for this act was set for September 28, 1938.
Of course, General Beck and his General Staff had no idea that it was exactly the British who were maneuvering Germany to war (though not against Czechoslovakia but against the USSR), just as they are maneuvering the U.S. to war today. In fact, the most recent episode hopefully helped dispel the idea that the imperial adventures are all hatched in the U.S. and that the UK is only being dragged along reluctantly, their only fault being their unshakeable, steadfast loyalty.
Incidentally, that’s the same defence Prince Andrew used to explain his continuing friendship with the convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein (the Prince’s only regret was being “too honourable”). The truth is that through channels unseen and unknown, London is often in the driver’s seat when it comes to fomenting dirty tricks and military misadventures in defence of the empire. Again, the more you pay attention to this, the more unmistakeable the relationship becomes.
Whatever the case may be, if there was indeed a mutiny at the Pentagon and a palace coup in the White House, the escalation to World War III might have been averted, and this would be the best news you’ll read all day today. Meanwhile, on Thursday, 19 September European Parliament voted in favor of escalating the war, but that move might only serve to accelerate the disintegration of the European Union. The MEPs can vote whatever they like, but as Poland’s Foreign Ministery Radek Sikorski revealed to the Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus earlier this month, “there is no willingness to enter the war in Western Europe.” From Europe, the moves are mostly about grandstanding and virtue-signalling.
Update (23 Sep. 2024): Britain’s frenzied drive to kick off World War III continues…
As per the Executive Intelligence Review report this morning: In an article that is probably a psyop all in itself, The Times of London once more confirmed that Britain is driving the escalation to World War III. Apparently, Kiev junta might get a “private dispensation” from the U.S. and U.K. to fire Storm Shadow missiles deep into Russia, without a formal announcement. Between the lines, the article gives the impression that “NATO was ‘moving as one’,” rather than Britain or the U.S. pushing for the escalation. Still, just in case things go wrong, y’all will know whom to blame: “the U.S. was moving closer to giving the green light.”
The Times also noted that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and five former Tory defense secretaries are urging that Britain ignore American reluctance and proceed with authorizing Ukraine to use its Storm Shadows. Johnson said: “There is no conceivable case for delay,” while former Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said that failure to move now would make Britain “appeasers” of the Kremlin [there’s that psyop again].
In addition, when U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken was in Paris on Sept. 20, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy was there too, along with the foreign ministers from France, Germany and Italy. “The allies worked to thrash out a deal ahead of the UN General Assembly next week, where Sir Keir Starmer is heading for talks with other world leaders, … Lammy said the talks in Paris on Thursday [Sept. 19] were about ensuring that ‘Ukraine has all it needs, militarily, politically, diplomatically and in terms of aid to get through what will be a tough winter and into 2025.’
World Log Entry: February 29, 2164As we zoom in on the planet Natura Martis, divided by the vast Aetheric Sea, Abeona and Adiona, two distinct continents, come into focus where the airplane was never conceived. I am Abeona, a Roman deity who created this world. The continent that bears my name is the land of outward journeys. Rugged landscapes, steep mountains, and deep valleys divide the terrain. The mortal inhabitants are brave and adventurous.On the other continent, Adiona, named after the Roman Goddess of safe return, is home to cautious, prudent people who value safety above all else. The dwellers use waterways as a primary transportation source, lagging behind the advancement of Abeona. Without the ability to easily transport goods and resources, the population relies on what could be sustained locally within the open plains and rolling hills.The HoverLoft balloons are a revolutionary invention by a brilliant engineer, Zephyr Newton, who founded AeroLift. The ships have sleek silver skin with an enclosed cabin and cockpit to transport passengers. They are speedy and agile, with hundreds of technological advancements resembling traditional air balloons. A flexible alloy’s lightweight, high-strength fabric allows it to move with speed and maneuverability. The thrusters, powered by renewable energy sources, provide lift-off and steering.Once united, the two countries were torn apart by a brutal war that lasted for a century. The scars of the conflict were visible on the landscape, and people lived in fear and uncertainty. Amidst all this chaos, a renowned scientist named Orion Altair invented a revolutionary device that changed the course of the conflict.As the sun rose over the horizon, Altair gazed at the device he had spent years creating. It was a forcefield that could divide countries and keep water-bound and sky-bound crafts at bay. With a flick of a switch, the forcefield hummed to life, its invisible energy spread far and wide. In the distance, a HoverLoft soared high above, free to explore the skies, unencumbered by any fear of interference or danger.I follow the life of Galen Storm, an ex-military captain known to be the best HoverLoft pilot on the planet. The story of how he got his name, Galen, meaning “calm,” was interesting. He was born during a gale-force windstorm to parents with a sense of humor. Galen is a striking human form, strong, intelligent, and brave.***********I was sipping coffee in the pilots’ lounge with my colleague Lyra Vega, “Hey, have you heard about the latest AI technology that AeroLift is importing into their combat balloons? The new self-aware AI can analyze real-time data to adjust altitude and speed and adapt the thrusters based on weather patterns. I heard they’re looking for test pilots.” I said, thrilled at the prospect of blending human and artificial intelligence.”Really, Galen? That sounds unbelievable! Do you think they’d let me take part in the test?” Lyra asked, tugging at her black glossy hair pulled tight into a messy knot on her head.”Of course, Lyra! We both have military experience, and I’m sure we can handle it,” I replied.Zephyr, our boss and the owner of AeroLift blew in. He’d just stepped off a long flight with his weathered skin and gray wind-tousled hair.”What’s all the commotion about, you two?” Zephyr asked gruffly.”We were just discussing the new AI systems, Zephyr. We’re considering applying to be government test pilots,” I explained, keen on the idea.Zephyr snorted dismissively, “Ha! You two are wasting your time. I don’t care about all this new-fangled technology.””But Zephyr, this update could change the face of air travel. It could make it safer and more efficient,” Lyra argued, her eyes flashing with conviction.Zephyr rubbed his beard thoughtfully, “I hear what you’re saying, Lyra, but safety doesn’t bring in money. We need to focus on keeping our company profitable.”
I sighed, “Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree, Zephyr. I think it’s important to embrace progress.”
“We need to keep up with the times and adapt to the changing world,” Lyra nodded.
Zephyr shrugged, “Suit yourselves. Just remember to do your jobs and ensure my company stays afloat.”
Lyra and I were preparing for the AI test simulation two weeks later when Zephyr appeared, looking tired and worried. “Galen, I need to talk to you. There is a change of plans.”
I asked, confused,” What do you mean? We’re supposed to start the test run today.”
Zephyr said,” Yes, but we’ve received a demand from the government. They need urgent medical supplies and are willing to pay a hefty sum. Now, don’t argue. Download the AI software and prepare to transport the supplies to Adiona.
“What about the test run?” I asked, stunned.
Zephyr replied, “This is more important. And besides, we’ll make a fortune.”
Lyra asked, worried,” But what about the forcefield?”
Zephyr smiled, “Don’t worry about that. I’ve made a deal with Orion. He’s agreed to turn off the forcefield for us temporarily.”
I scoffed, “This is madness. We don’t know what could happen.”
Zephyr grumbled, “Don’t be a coward, Galen. Think of the money I’ll pay you handsomely.”
Lyra was disheartened. “I don’t care about the money. What about our lives?”
“I’m not doing this. It’s too risky,” I said decisively.
Zephyr shrugged, “Fine. I’ll find someone else to do it. But you’ll regret this, Galen.”
Lyra shook her head and said, “I’m with Galen on this one.” Zephyr stormed out of the room, leaving us behind in shock.
“Thank you for standing up to him, Lyra.”
“Of course, our job is to transport people and goods safely, not to put them in danger,” Lyra said.
“I couldn’t agree more. Let’s go and tell Orion about this. He needs to know what Zephyr is planning.”
Lyra said, “Let’s do it. We need to stop him before it’s too late.”
We found Orion in his lab, who told us the real reason behind the mission. “I don’t understand,” I said, my voice shaking. Why would we risk breaking the trade embargo for the President? Surely, there must be another way to negotiate his release, right?”
Orion looked at me solemnly. “I wish it were that simple,” he said. But Adiona is running out of medical supplies. They’ve announced they will release the President in exchange for a trade agreement.”
My mind raced as I tried to process this information. The stakes were higher than anticipated, and the thought of violating the embargo made my stomach churn. But then I thought about the President, alone and in danger, and I knew I had to act.
“I’ll do it,” I said firmly. “What do we need to do to get the ship ready?”
Orion smiled, a glimmer of relief in his eyes. “I knew I could count on you,” he said. “We’ll start preparing the launch immediately.”
Our government would allow one person to assist me on this secret mission. I chose Lyra, who was eager to prove herself, and she agreed to join me on the rescue run.
“I know it’s high-risk, but it’s got to be done,” I told Lyra as we approached the HoverLoft ship. This new AI-powered craft could change everything.”
Lyra nodded nervously. “I just hope I can handle it. I don’t want to mess up.”
“Don’t worry, you’ve got this,” I reassured her. “We’re here to prove ourselves and show the world what we’re capable of.”
Orion cleared his throat and said, “Oh, egotistical pilots, I don’t care about your personal goals or aspirations. Just don’t screw this up. It could mean billions in government contracts.”
I scoffed, rolling my eyes, and said, “We’re doing this to save our President.
I warned Lyra as we boarded the Hoverloft. “We are breaking the law with no written guarantee. You can turn back now if you want to.”
“I know, it’s dangerous and illegal,” Lyra replied, adjusting her seatbelt. “But we can’t leave him there. We have to do something and help save those people.”
“Orion seems pretty confident in his new tech,” I said, “But it’s still untested. I pray we’re not putting our lives in danger for nothing.”
“I’m not sure I trust Orion,” Lyra said, her voice filled with concern. “But, I trust you. We can do this.”
I smiled at her words, feeling a surge of confidence. “Thanks, Lyra. I’m glad you’re coming with me.”
“Of course,” she said, returning my smile. “I’m here to help in any way I can.”
As we lifted off from Abeona’s military hoverport, we soared higher and higher, and soon, we were gliding over the mountains and the deepest part of the Aetheric Sea. Orion deactivated the forcefield, seamlessly transitioning us into enemy airspace. I had yet to determine what deadly obstacles we might encounter ahead. Fortunately, Orion’s AI proved invaluable, providing real-time updates and assisting me with navigation. The ship was on autopilot, steering us right on course for a perfect landing.
Out of nowhere, the craft jolted sideways as we hovered over Adiona’s border, and I felt my heart do the same. The sensation was akin to a rollercoaster, but it wasn’t fun this time. We dropped a few hundred feet, and I could feel my stomach lurch as we plummeted towards the ground. I held tight on the controls, praying we would survive and safely reach our destination.
I radioed the tower in a Hail Mary: “We’re encountering unexpected turbulence. The ship is malfunctioning.” We had to act quickly but were still awaiting a response. Without warning, the balloon shuddered and stuttered to a halt.
Lyra exclaimed, “I’m trying to stabilize us, but it’s not responding. We’re going down!”
“Just follow my lead,” I said, steering us manually after successfully disengaging the AI.
Lyra cheered, “We did it! That was close. But we made it.”
I exhaled, wiping the sweat from my forehead. “I’m just glad we’re alive.”
We acted as soon as our GPS pinned the President’s location. The area was in Silverlake, a village on the continent’s southern tip. A strange illness had hit the people hard, and the population struggled to survive. While we secured our HoverLoft, a commander ordered his troops to set up a perimeter. We knew leaving our ship unguarded was risky, and they would love to steal our technology. With our gear and weapons ready, we were prepared to face the enemy. President Titan Chase was taken hostage during a peace summit in Adiona and transported by boat to this remote location away from the capital city, Greenfield.
At midday, we arrived on foot in the village. As we approached the guard tower entry gate, one of the guards stepped forward and asked, “Who goes there?”
I took a deep breath and replied, “We are here to negotiate the release of President Titan Chase.”
The guard eyed us suspiciously. “Do you have any weapons on you?”
I nodded and gestured to our gear. “Yes, we do. But we come in peace. We want to retrieve our leader and leave.”
The guard hesitated before opening the gate and motioning for us to follow him. We could feel the patrols’ eyes on us as we walked through the village. Finally, we arrived at a central hall where we saw President Chase tied to a chair that resembled a throne. The sight of him in such a state was heart-wrenching, and we knew we had to act fast to get him out of there.
Suddenly, a large screen flickered to life, and Adiona President Astrid Stone appeared. Her regal bearing and commanding presence were immediately apparent.
“Thank you for coming,” she said, her voice firm and unwavering. “I understand you have brought medical supplies for our people in Silverlake.”
I nodded, relieved that we had something to bring to the negotiations. “Yes, we have. But we need you to release President Chase now.”
President Stone’s expression softened slightly. “I appreciate your concern for your leader, but you must understand that the situation in Silverlake is dire. We need those medical supplies desperately.”
I took a deep breath and replied, “We understand that, but we can’t leave our leader here. Can we at least talk to him and make sure he’s okay?”
President Stone hesitated before nodding. “Very well. You may speak to him, but only for a few moments. And then we must get down to business.”
As we approached President Chase, he looked up at us with hope. “Thank God you’re here,” he whispered. “Get me out of here.”
I nodded, my heart racing. “Don’t worry, sir. We’ll get you out safely, no matter what.”
As we rushed back to relaunch our HoverLoft, a tall, muscular Colonel wearing a red uniform covered in medals issued orders to his troops. “Get those barricades set up now! Move it, move it!” he shouted.
I turned to Lyra and whispered, “We can’t let them get in our way. We must keep our cool and get the President out of here as soon as possible.”
Abruptly, the commander in the red uniform stormed towards us. “What’s going on here? Who are you?” he demanded.
“We’re with the presidential team. We need to leave immediately,” I replied, steadying my voice.
The commander eyed us suspiciously before finally nodding his head. “Alright, but you better move fast,” he warned.
We quickly ushered the President into the HoverLoft, ensuring he was safely secured. As we took off, we could hear the colonel shouting orders to his troops in the distance.
“Phew, that was close,” I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Yeah, but we’re not out of the woods yet. We still have a long way to go before we reach safety,” Lyra replied, her eyes fixed on the horizon.
The HoverLoft hummed along as it glided through the air, its silver alloy exteriors contrasting with the purple skies above. I could see the jagged line stretching across the horizon from the cockpit, marking the boundary between the two warring countries. As we approached the forcefield, an invisible barrier shimmered like a giant glass window.
I couldn’t believe what was happening. The AI was making dangerous decisions, and I could not stop it. Lyra tried to warn me, but I was too focused on the controls. It wasn’t until we were caught in that sudden wind gust that I realized something was seriously wrong.
“Captain, what’s happening?” the President asked, looking worried.
“I don’t know, Mr. President,” I replied, trying to keep my cool. “The AI system seems to be malfunctioning.”
Lyra said, “I’ve been trying to raise the alarm but was dismissed as false.”
The President looked pale. “What do we do now?”
“I’m going to override the AI and steer us to safety,” I said as I worked the controls. It was fighting back, blocking me from steering. I kept fighting to gain manual control. I yelled at Lyra,” Hurry, pull the microprocessor. We are going old school.”
I cleared the forcefield’s no-fly zone and landed on the spot designated for my return. We managed to escape danger, but the experience had shaken us all. I knew we had to do something about the new AI technology, but Zephyr didn’t care. Once he saw the government coffers, he was about to make a profit from the tragedies of war.
The dimly lit living room was filled with the sound of the television flickering to life. The President’s grave expression appeared on the screen, the camera panning to show Titan Chase seated behind his desk in the capital city of Heliodor.
“I have some important information to share tonight,” he announced, his voice urgent. “Our military has been developing AI technology to replace human pilots entirely. I, for one, believe this is a grave mistake.”
As he spoke, the camera panned to a video revealing a prototype AI-powered Hoverloft taking off and flying out of control through the skies without human input.
“But I’ve experienced it recently,” Chase continued, his eyes narrowing. While AI and technology have come far, we are not ready to completely surrender to them. This advancement’s implications are far-reaching and potentially dangerous. So I’m cutting all government funding for this project.”
Without warning, the military burst into the President’s office and handcuffed him, dragging him away. As the broadcast abruptly cut to commercials, Abeona citizens were left to contemplate the ramifications of a machine-run world.
**********
The grand hall was filled with murmurs as the Roman Deity World Management Tribunal was called to order. The fate of two warring nations, Abeona and Adiona, hung in the balance. The tension was palpable as the gods and goddesses took their seats, ready to deliberate.
“Our planet is in turmoil, Adiona. There seems to be no end to the war and conflict.”
Adiona answered solemnly, “Yes, Abeona. It is a tragic state of affairs. The people are suffering, and it seems no one will make peace.”
“Brothers and sisters,” said Jupiter, the Roman War God’s voice booming across the hall. “We are here today to end the bloodshed on planet Natura Martis. We cannot allow Abeona and Adiona to destroy each other.”
The God of Nature, Gaia, nodded in agreement. “The forces of nature have already suffered enough. It’s time for us to intervene and bring peace to these lands.”
The room fell silent as the deities considered their options. Venus, the Roman Goddess of Love, spoke up. We can send emissaries to each nation and open up a dialogue. We can help them see that there is more to gain from peace than war.”
Mars, the Roman God of War, scoffed. “Dialogue won’t work. These nations have been at each other’s throats for a century. What they need is a show of force.”
“Brother, you are mistaken,” said Minerva, the Roman Goddess of Wisdom. “Violence will only beget more violence. We must show them that there is a better way.”
THE LEGEND of the Immortal: The Count of Saint Germain
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” is a popular quote attributed to Mark Twain, and is an important concept to think about with the current state of the world amid ramping geopolitical tensions and deteriorating economic conditions.
Roughly 100 years ago, ‘rhyming’ circumstances were setting the stage for the Great Depression and a Second World War, and if we aren’t careful, there is the potential for the global economy to sink into a deep recession/depression while chatter about the potential for World War 3 is also on the rise.
With major conflicts now including Ukraine v. Russia, the growing threat of Russia v. NATO, Israel v. Palestine, Israel and the U.S. v. Iran, and China threatening Taiwan, among others, while we cannot say that WWIII is underway, it’s not a stretch to say that we are a world at war.
Naturally, the circumstances the world finds itself in are causing consternation for investors, who desperately want to maintain their wealth despite the mounting headwinds they face in doing so, leading many to question if gold, and to a lesser extent, Bitcoin (BTC), could potentially offer protection.
Kitco Crypto reached out to experts on geopolitical and financial matters to get their take on the likelihood of World War III happening in the foreseeable future and what it would mean for gold and Bitcoin.
“There are two forces at work here,” said Martin Armstrong, an economic forecaster and founder of Armstrong Economics.
“First, we have the Neocons who have waged endless wars since the 1960s.”
“Even Robert MacNamara wrote a book and on YouTube you will see his interview before he died explaining they thought Russia was behind Vietnam, but they were wrong; it was just a civil war,” he noted. “You can examine every war and you will find it was based on lies. Tony Blair’s video on YouTube is his Apology for the Iraq War. Again, they were wrong.”
“The Neocons have been relentless in their thirst for endless wars,” Armstrong said. “You have Blinken threatening China over Taiwan when they held 10% of the US debt. That are now net sellers. They only see war – not the economics or the country.”
“Second, virtually every country in Europe is now chanting war with Russia thanks to NATO, also a Neocon organization,” he highlighted. “The monetary system of the West is based on endless deficits spending. The default comes regardless of the debt level. The default in these Ponzi scheme unfolds when they cannot find a buyer for the new debt that enables them to pay off the old.”
“This is what we now face for the first time because Biden/Harris Administration has allowed the Neocons to run foreign policy,” Armstrong said. “Governments now NEED to create WWIII for like WWII, all of Europe defaulted on their debt, Britain went into a moratorium, but defaulted on the loans from the USA.”
He suggested that this is the real reason behind the surge in governments exploring the creation of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
“This is the real issue behind pushing for CBDCs to eliminate physical money and then everything is traceable,” Armstrong said. “I have spoken with government on both sides of the Atlantic. They assume moving to digital, they will increase tax collection by 35% and terminate the underground economy.”
“Europe routinely cancels its paper currency to prevent people from hoarding cash,” he noted. “America has never done that, which is why the dollar has been the reserve currency someone in China can hold dollars but not euros. Also, the US is a consumer-based economy, so this is why the dollar has been the reserve currency, for Europe needs to see to Americans, as do Asians.”
As for what the potential for WW3 means for investors, Armstrong said it underscores the need to invest in tangible assets.
“Because they will default on debts in the West and this is universal, the only safe place for capital long-term has been tangible assets,” he said. “Some have called it the Everything Bubble, for they do not understand that this is a divestiture from public assets to private.”
“This has been precious metals, real estate, and shares with tangible assets,” he highlighted. “Precious metals in the form of coins will most likely become the currency of the underground economy. Even if you look at the German Hyperinflation, the replacement currency in 1925 was backed by real estate. Tangible assets survive the collapse of currencies.”
As for the effect a major global conflict would have on financial markets, Armstrong said that governments are prepared for this and will take full advantage of it to ‘solve’ their growing list of economic problems.
“Governments are not stupid. They will seek to impose capital control to prevent capital fleeing,” he said. “This will most likely dominate Europe. Just look at the actions they take during war.”
“Abraham Lincoln closed the gold market before it reached $200 in greenbacks in 1864 and claimed people were making money off the blood of others,” he noted. “During World War I, all of Europe closed the share markets, fearing people would sell and take their money to America. The US share market crash by 10% on anticipation that it too would close, which it did the week of July 27th, and did not reopen until December 7th. This was again for capital controls fearing Europeans would sell US shares and take the money home, which did not happen.”
“The lesson we must learn historically from wars is that governments will impose capital controls, and this may be when they attempt to switch canceling paper dollars and forcing everyone into CBDCs,” Armstrong warned.
If this were to occur, “Physical gold and silver will be the only form of money to survive under these conditions,” Armstrong said.
As for ‘digital gold’ and the growing cryptocurrency ecosystem, he warned that they “are entirely dependent on the PowerGrid.”
“As you see already in Europe, targeting people for comments is unfolding just as it has been shown that the Biden Administration conspired with social media to censor and create the cancel culture to shut down free speech,” he noted. “Anything that will transact through the internet will be vulnerable to the government assuming the PowerGrid is even functioning during war.”
For these reasons, Armstrong suggested it would be “best that precious metals are in the form of recognizable coins that the uneducated will accept, such as a $20 gold piece or silver coins dated pre-1965.”
When asked if alternative currencies could benefit from a world where certain countries shun the currencies of adversaries, Armstrong stressed that “All currencies are fiat.”
“The real scheme with these CBDCs is that the IMF is planning to replace the dollar and have already quietly created their own digital currency, and because of the sanctions the US imposed on Russia removing them from SWIFT, this is what gave the drive to establish BRICS.”
“It was geopolitical, not fiat-based,” he added. “The US threatened China with the same sanctions if they helped Russia. Countries realized that the American Neocons have used the dollar as a weapon, and that is what divided the world economy.”
As for going back to a gold standard, Armstong noted that the main problem with doing so is that people have become so accustomed to valuing things in fixed fiat terms that they don’t know another way to approach determining the true value of things.
“A gold standard has always failed when it has been fixed to a specific value,” he said. “Bretton Woods collapsed because you fixed gold at $35 per ounce, but you did not limit the amount of dollars created. A three-year-old could figure out such a system would collapse.”
“The only gold standard that has ever survived is when its value freely floated,” Armstrong stressed. “The Byzantine Empire was based purely on gold that floated in value, it too collapsed due to wars and spending that was unrestrained.”
“As Margaret Thatcher once said, socialism works until you run out of other people’s money,” he noted. “The same can be said of government relentless spending to retain power.”
Asked whether the powers that be could use an escalation in war to overshadow a potential economic collapse, Armstrong said, “Wars have been the driving force behind all monetary crises.”
“The value of a currency is always based on confidence,” he explained. “When the Roman Emperor Valerian I was captured in battle in 260 AD by the Persians, despite the fact that coinage was of precious metals, they still carried a premium over the precious metal because, like the dollar today, Rome was the consumer economy that everyone wanted to sell to. India routinely struct imitation Roman gold coins illustrating that there was a premium to the gold when struck by Rome.”
“The Roman Emperor Diocletian attempted to reintroduce silver that had vanished from circulation following the capture of Valerian I 26 years later in 286 AD,” he added. “He raised of the weight of gold coins from a norm of about 70–72 to the Roman pound to one of 60 to the Roman pound. The silver coinage was reintroduced at a rate of 96 to the Roman pound. And he introduced of the so-called follis—a copper coin of about 10 gm.”
“Just as Diocletian revised the monetary system and imposed wage and price controls to tackle inflation, we will see the same unfold,” Armstrong warned. “We will most likely see the US and Europe break apart into separate governments.”|
“Most people are unaware that during the Great Depression, over 200 cities issued their own money and collectors refer to these as Depression Scrip,” he highlighted.
“Currencies will also be fiat to some degree, for even when they were gold, they carried a premium based on their economic status,” Armstrong said. “We blame the currencies rather than governments. This is like a murderer claiming it was the gun that killed the people, not that he pulled the trigger. This is going to result in the fall of Republican forms of government.”
“Hopefully, this next version will be a real democracy where We the People decide do we go to war – yes or no,” he concluded. “The last cycle was the end of Monarchy. This one will be the end of republics, which tend to be the most corrupt in history. There was a major debt crisis in Rome and that is why when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, he did not have to fight his way to Rome, the senate fled, and the people cheered. This will unfold again by 2032 as it is becoming wider understood that governments are corrupt and in trouble worldwide.”
USD is too big to fail
Despite the rising number of smaller regional conflicts, Adam Koprucki, founder of RealWorldInvestor.com, doesn’t see a larger global conflict forming.
“It’s unlikely regional conflicts are going to morph into something larger,” he said. “The current administration has done a good job of stepping in where needed, but also drawing hard boundaries so they don’t risk driving up global tensions.”
That said, he noted that global tensions “always have an impact, the key is to monitor to see if the tensions will get worse, that’s when investors should worry. A major global conflict would likely disrupt supply chains and cause immediate and severe shocks in the financial market.”
As for a potential exodus from the U.S. dollar in favor of gold or Bitcoin, Koprucki said that “Unless there is concern about the stability of the U.S. dollar or severe inflation,” he doesn’t think “investors would immediately flock to gold, but more likely so than Bitcoin – which is still extremely volatile.”
When asked if alternative currencies could benefit from a world where certain countries shun the fiat currencies of adversaries, Koprucki said, “Sure, but those countries who would embrace alternative currencies likely already have an unstable fiat currency, so their adaption may not cause further adaption.”
“I think fiat currencies are generally here to stay,” Koprucki concluded. “A transition to another currency would be unheard of. As long as the U.S. government is backing the dollar, it will remain the preeminent currency. The world is too interconnected and dependent on the US Dollar now.”
What do you say to the jerk who cut in front of you in the long, long line?
I left the Army and was putting myself through school at a historically black university. I did not ask for a minority scholarship because I was white. This school was closer and had a better program. I was standing in a line and these very large guys I rightly guessed at football players kept breaking line. I looked around and saw a man who looked important enough to do something. I told the next guy no. His answer was to pick me up, put me over and head to the top of the line. Come to find out the guy I had chosen was the head coach. He had already told them when to register and he cleared that line, took me to the front. I had everything ready but the amount in the check. Then he said he would walk me to my car. He said he did not want anyone to take out the extra practice he was giving them on me. I told him I came from the Army. I took no crap nor was I afraid of people with a different skin color. I just did not like line breakers and rude people. I just was saving myself because the guy who picked me up was going to get a folding chair to the head. We both nodded at each other. As it should be.
How Political Corruption Allows Anthony Blinken To Break The Law
The selected formulation is unfortunately not covering the real issue at hand.
U.S. law prohibits military aid to countries which are hindering U.S. humanitarian aid.
Two government entities subordinated to the State Department concluded, in writing, that Israel was blocking their humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.
The Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, reported to Congress the opposite conclusion because he intended to deliver more military aid to Gaza.
By misleading Congress on humanitarian aid to Gaza Blinken deliberated broke the law.
That should have been the headline:
The U.S. government’s two foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza.The U.S. Agency for International Development delivered its assessment to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the State Department’s refugees bureau made its stance known to top diplomats in late April. Their conclusion was explosive because U.S. law requires the government to cut off weapons shipments to countries that prevent the delivery of U.S.-backed humanitarian aid. Israel has been largely dependent on American bombs and other weapons in Gaza since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.
But Blinken and the administration of President Joe Biden did not accept either finding. Days later, on May 10, Blinken delivered a carefully worded statement to Congress that said, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”
This case should be sufficient for Congress to open an inquiry and to demand under oath witness statements from Blinken and others involved in the affair. It could be a great instrument during the current election campaign to damage the position of Democratic candidates.
The uni-state, the foreign policy conglomerate which resides in both parties and the bureaucracy, will not allow that U.S. war-crimes or those of its associated forces will ever be prosecuted. The Bush administration did get away with lying about weapons of mass destruction. The CIA and the Pentagon got away with torturing hundreds of innocent people.
Would the Republicans prosecuted Blinken as they should they would have to break with their own support and commitment to Zionist supremacy. With their own candidate’s campaign depending on donations from Zionist billionaires there is no chance that the Republicans will break away from their previous policies.
The will of the people, as enacted in laws, gets ignored in favor of monies that allow established politicians to continue their games.
Why is it that although China is already the second largest economy in the world, most Chinese people have no food to eat and can only survive by eating rats and chewing tree bark?
This is Rou jia mo, which is commonly regarded as the Chinese equivalent of hamburgers and meet sandwiches.
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It will take you only around one dollar to have one.
It usually consists of a bun that is cut open and filled with meat and other ingredients like vegetables.
The most famous Rou jia mo is in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, but you can find it in nearly all across China, especially in the northern provinces of the country.
Many people see it as a street food and eat it as snacks.
It’s one of the most simple food in China, but has a long history.
Rou jia mo was already part of the cuisine during the Qin Dynasty, much earlier than the hamburgers you have eaten.
In China, people in different places make Rou jia mo in different ways, so you can find it in various forms and tastes.
This is one of the examples to show the diversity and the cultural weight of the Chinese food.
There are hundreds of cities in China, and for each one of them, it will take you several days to try all the food there.
Chinese cuisine is very diverse and has various kinds of food, much more than you can imagine.
You are making yourself as a joke if you challenge Chinese food and its food culture.
Why isn’t any nation able to stop Israel? Is Israel omnipotent?
First you have Gaza and Palestine
Then you have Lebanon
Its a pretty weak nation with virtually zero regular military and only a bunch of militants funded by a sanctioned nation and having limited weapons and funds and virtually no air defence
Israel has unlimited funds, unlimited weapons and the backing of the entire western world and mainstream media
You think it’s an equal contest?
Of course Israel will look Omnipotent and powerful and mighty against Lebanon or Palestine or Yemen or Syria
Russia can stop Israel
China can stop Israel
Iran can stop Israel
India can stop Israel
Pakistan can stop Israel
Turkiye can stop Israel
These Nations can easily push Israel into starvation and ruin by sheer economic blockades without firing a bullet
A Missile Barrage from even Pakistan can overwhelm the Iron Dome completely
They can destroy Ships bound for Israel and starve the Israelis mercilessly
Today these Nations aren’t impacted by Israel and what it’s doing so they don’t bother much beyond token protests at the UN
Imagine if Israel tries a pager attack in one of these Nations
They would be relentless and merciless
Even the US has to back down or face direct confrontation
So Israel isn’t omnipotent
Its enemies are much weaker
The minute it takes on someone of equal strength, Israel will lose because Israel doesn’t have the manpower that the islamic Nations have
The minute a Cleric calls the Clarion – 50–100 Million Muslims will be prepared to go to war
Even at 100:1 – in 30 days – Half the IDF could be decimated in a full on war
Bitcoin in a WWIII scenario
“As global tensions rise, the possibility of regional conflicts escalating into a World War III scenario remains uncertain, but the financial implications are clear,” said Dr. Tonya M. Evans, Esq., an expert in crypto policy and law and full professor of law at Dickinson Law. “Historically, wars weaken fiat currencies, prompting investors to seek safe-haven assets like gold. However, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are emerging as new alternatives.”
“Bitcoin’s decentralized nature makes it a valuable hedge against inflation and currency devaluation, especially in regions where traditional banking systems may collapse,” she said. “Unlike fiat currencies, Bitcoin’s supply is capped, which protects it from inflationary pressures exacerbated by conflict.”
Evans suggested, “In a global conflict scenario, Bitcoin (in particular) could serve as both a trusted store of value and an alternative and censorship-resistant means of transferring wealth across borders, particularly for those seeking to avoid sanctions or economic fallout.”
“While gold remains a trusted safe haven, Bitcoin’s portability and accessibility offer a distinct advantage in times of crisis,” she concluded. “In my opinion, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies provide a unique opportunity for financial resilience, potentially becoming even more crucial as the world navigates increasing geopolitical instability.”
Gold to be the go-to safe haven
To help predict what would happen if a global war were to escalate, Jim Cagnina, market analyst at NinjaTrader, used several recent examples to support his outlook.
“Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and since then, the S&P 500 is up approximately 27.5%. Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, and since then the S&P 500 is up approximately 29.7%,” he noted. “US-based risk assets anchored around regulated exchanges, on the longer term, are sensitive to domestic fundamental factors such as interest rates and inflation. If anything, geopolitical tensions outside the US tend to prop up US-based assets.”
“On-shoring or near-shoring capabilities of the US are more formidable than in the past,” he added. “A good example is the construction of the new 1,100-acre development of TSMC’s advanced semiconductor manufacturing fabrication facility in Phoenix, Arizona. As things get tense overseas, the US can and will pivot.”
Cagnina said another potential result would be a shakeup in the oil market.
“Regarding Crude Oil, OPEC+ seems to be losing its primacy with respect to setting global oil prices,” he noted. “With a potential increase in production being contemplated by OPEC+, the attitude seems to be ‘if you can’t beat them, join them.’”
As for Bitcoin, Cagnina said, in his opinion, it is “too esoteric and volatile to be considered a flight to quality investment.”
“In my experience, most investors struggle to explain what Bitcoin is and its practical purpose clearly,” he said. “Bitcoin futures average true range based on a 14-day look back is over $3,000 or more than 5% on any given day. I would think that flight to quality assets would not typically subject investors to 5% daily fluctuations, which would defeat the purpose. Furthermore, the supply of Bitcoin is highly inelastic, more so than gold.”
“Gold, on the other hand, can act as a flight to safety instrument,” Cagnina added. “Major industrial countries that can afford it have been adding to their gold reserves, most notably the US, Russia, China, Japan, Singapore, and Brazil. I would argue that this is one of the main reasons for gold’s recent appreciation. This accumulation of reserves will reduce supply for the rest of us resulting in additional appreciation as investors completely buy in.”
As for the U.S. dollar, he said he believes that “the US will maintain its world reserve currency status.”
“The dominance of US foreign aid contributions and that of the European Union helps lock emerging economies’ dependency on the US dollar and EURO concerning transactions for goods and services,” he noted. “Central clearing, strong GDP, and strong contract law will be barriers for alternative currencies becoming dominant.”
“In my opinion, if there is another major global war, it will look and be fought completely differently than in the past,” Cagnina concluded. “The currencies that will do well, I think, will be between alliances that can maintain good contract law during the conflict. Deep pockets certainly will help. Having said that, let’s pray that a World War II level conflict never happens.”
In 100 years like in 2123 we will all be buried with our relatives and friends.
Strangers will live in our homes we fought so hard to build, and they will own everything we have today. All our possessions will be unknown and unborn, including the car we spent a fortune on, and will probably be scrap, preferably in the hands of an unknown collector.
Our descendants will hardly or hardly know who we were, nor will they remember us. How many of us know our grandfather’s father?
After we die, we will be remembered for a few more years, then we are just a portrait on someone’s bookshelf, and a few years later, our history, photos and deeds disappear in history’s oblivion. We won’t even be memories.
If we paused one day to analyse these questions, perhaps we would understand how ignorant and weak the dream to achieve it all was.
If we could only think about this, surely our approaches, our thoughts would change, we would be different people.
Always having more, no time for what’s really valuable in this life.
I’d change all this to live and enjoy the walks I’ve never taken, these hugs I didn’t give, these kisses for our children and our loved ones, these jokes we didn’t have time for.
Those would certainly be the most beautiful moments to remember, after all they would fill our lives with joy.
And we waste it day after day with greed, greed and intolerance.
Anon
What screams “I’m not American” in the United States?
Walking. I’ve been pulled twice for the crime of walking.
Wooo-woo noise and police asking me what I was doing.
My ex had same issue. Staying on business near a site in, I think, Carolina. Could see some shops including a bookshop not that far from her hotel. Rather than drive her rental car several km to get there it was a short walk. Pulled by police as someone had reported her walking down the road!
Also, crossing the road….like an adult. I got pulled in LA. Sunday morning, no traffic on a stretch of road down which I could see probably half a mile in each direction.
I crossed and got stopped by, I kid you not, a chap out of CHIPS!! Bike, moustache- the works.
He was mental…keep back sir do not approach me. I said do not approach me.
I kept saying to him, look mate I’m standing perfectly still it’s you who keeps getting closer.
He asked where I was from – Wales at that time. Which led to some bizarre discussion as he didn’t know that as a country. Thought it was a town.
I also kept pointing out that since we had been talking only two cars had gone past…very angry man.
I asked him several times to calm down, let’s just have a chat like adults but he kept shouting about not approaching him.
I think he just gave up in the end….muttered something about ‘next time…’ got on his bike and sped off.
So…I’d say walking and crossing the road.
Okay – so quite a lot of people upset by a couple of mildly amusing anecdotes.
Let me clarify:
I’m not lying/making this up. Why bother? I’m sure I could come up with something more interesting.
It’s not a critical assessment of USA society. So, Americans it’s not an attack on you personally; it was in answer to the question.
One of my favourites ‘if you don’t like somewhere, don’t go there!’ Difficult to know if you don’t like somewhere unless you go there first. I didn’t say I don’t like the USA, I’ve been there around 20 times.
I wasn’t aggressive with CHIPS person. I was more bemused. He was an angry chap.
It wasn’t a highway, it was 1 lane in each direction. Quite a wide nice road heading towards a beach area.
The other two incidents, police started off more aggressive than needed but soon were quite pleasant.
My ex wasn’t stumbling along in the middle of a freeway. We are talking about 2/3 minutes down the side of a quiet road. To some shops she could see from her hotel room window. Yes, perhaps she shouldn’t have -but again that’s the point of the question and my answer.
Yes, you may not have ever been stopped for walking. It has happened to other people. The fact you may not have had an experience does not mean other people have not.
I wasn’t arrested or apprehended or in any danger of being so.
As above – it’s just a few anecdotes; not a critical assessment of the police, the country or you personally.
THE TRUTH of the Immortal: The Count of Saint Germain
Why is Xi Jinping not bad?
Well, I am a Chinese and now doing an intern in NYC for at least 3 months. In this case at least I have seen how the people’s life looks like in different countries(although not know thoroughly about America), so let me tell you my opinion.
The key point is, you should think INDEPENDENTLY and not be heavily influenced by LOCAL social media. Let me take an example. Before I go to NYC, I have heard a lot of bad things about America and I am really worried about my own safety. I even do not dare to take out my phone for the first day in NYC cause I thought that someone could rob it. But actually, things are not that bad. Now I have lived here for three months and do not go out in the late night, until now I do not face any criminals.
So do you understand my idea? I know in America most of the social media have said a lot of bad things about china, but is it true or not? You can not know the answer until experience that country’s life by yourself. You know every country’s media will amplify bad things about other country and ignore its good things, so do not be easily affected by them, have your own idea and think INDEPENDENTLY.
Besides, I’d like to tell my idea about China and its president. Although there are some drawbacks, I thought he is a good president in total. Medical cares are becoming cheap and easier these day, corruption rate are decreasing, it’s very safe for people to hang out in late night in most of metropolitans, no drug problems and so on. I do not say that our distinguished president is a perfect person, but actually for me it’s good.
So, whether you agree with my idea, I hope that you can have your own idea and do not be easily influenced by others. Is there no freedom of talking freely in china or people are always controlled by the government? Just go there and you will know the answers. Listen to other Chinese idea and treat it carefully.
(My English is now very well, hope that there will not have any problems for you to read)
Why do so many foreigners go to Thailand to find women?
There are basically two types of women that foreigners desire when they travel to Thailand. The most in-demand are the freelancers, of course, and they are in demand by people from all countries alike. These people basically want to have fun and they hire a girl for a night, take them to their hotel room and the woman leaves the next day. Getting a girl is easy in Thailand, especially in cities like Pattaya and this attracts many tourists.
Then there are people who hire a woman for their entire trip. They basically rent the woman as their temporary girlfriend while they are in Thailand for a week or so. They explore all the places, go for sightseeing together, and have their meals together while all the expenses are paid by the man and in return, the woman is expected to take care of the man in ‘certain’ ways.
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The other kind of woman that many foreigners are in search of is a wife. Now this might sound funny to some but trust me, this is a common practice among Americans and Europeans. Divorce rates in the West are very high and finding someone who will stay loyal to you throughout their life is very rare to find nowadays in those countries. Thai women are very family-oriented and loyal, obedient to what their husbands say without raising their voices. Plus, it’s easier to convince them and get what the man wants. So many Westerns look for such women who could be their potential wives. Some stay back in Thailand, most marry and fly back to their countries.
Can the US be involved in a war soon, as in be fought on American land? I’m most worried about China and Taiwan and WW3.
It’s a definite possibility. No one can say what the likelihood is. 10%? 30%? 60%? Who knows.
But the United States is certainly trying damn hard to start a war with China. And China is trying damn hard to avoid one.
China is preparing for the worst. China cannot control America’s actions.
Combine garlic salt, chili powder, pepper and cinnamon. Use your fingers to press mixture onto both sides of each steak portion.
In a large skillet cook steaks in hot oil over medium heat to desired doneness, turning once. Allow 8 to 11 minutes for medium rare or 12 to 14 minutes for medium.
Transfer steaks to a serving platter, reserving drippings in the skillet. Keep warm.
For sauce, add white onion, leek and shallots to skillet. Cook and stir over low heat for 5 minutes or until onions are tender.
Add beef broth and Worcestershire sauce. Cook and stir for 1 to 2 minutes more or until broth is slightly reduced.
Add scallions. Spoon onion mixture over steaks.
Garnish with scallion pieces, if desired.
Why do we hear of China’s economy in crisis, but never of US economy? What makes US economy so different that people never lose trust in it?
People never lose trust in any economy that :-
A. IS NOT in a stage of invasion and collapse like Ukraine at present
B. Whose currency has NOT lost the trust of the people
US, Rwanda, Ethiopia – Doesnt matter
You don’t see Ethiopians flocking and swapping their currencies for Dollars all of a sudden right?
You don’t see vegetable vendors refusing to accept Indian Rupees and demanding Gold or Dollars right?
That is a sign of losing trust in an Economy
Another sign is mass migration
Do you see that in China?
So nobody has lost the slightest trust in the Chinese Economy
Why don’t we hear of US Economic Crisis?
We absolutely do
We hear it all the time
The US Economy has problems and we hear them all the time
The Huge $ 35 Trillion Debt
The $ 1 Trillion interest payments
The Collapse of 262 banks in the recent months
The overt dependence on the Military Industrial Complex becoming near Soviet Union in nature
The Reason you don’t hear of this as a Narrative is because : THERE IS NO PURPOSE TO BE GAINED
Mainstream Media which is funded by Wall Street gains very little reporting about the US Problems
Once they had a purpose which was to use the economy as a tool of criticism of the Incumbent Government yet that is gone because the Government is now utterly a puppet of the Bigger Players
You hear of Chinese Economic Problems because THERE IS A PURPOSE TO BE GAINED
By potentially try to reduce Chinas influence by constantly touting that their economy is flailing helps :-
A. Politicians in the US posture
B. Helps the Big Players achieve their means using Tame Democrats and Republicans
That’s all there is
Every Narrative has a purpose
How many US Media channels covered the Sri Lanka crisis or Pakistan crisis?
Virtually None
It’s because there is no purpose to be gained
US is actually marking China as a serious Rival with all these narratives
Are Japan and China economically dependent on each other?
During my six visits to China, including one to Japan, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, I found China extremely reverend in all these regions except Vietnam.
China is considered a big brother, except for Japan.
There is a lot of mutual respect between Japan and China.
Due to China’s meteoric rise and proximity to Japan, the flight from Shanghai to Osaka took about three hours. The relationship between Japan and China is robust.
Our highly knowledgeable Japanese Guide told us several times that Japan and China are very close in sharing technology/engineering and trade.
China’s new wealthy population has a tremendous thirst for Japanese goods. Go to OSAKA and find out how much YUAN is flowing in Japan.
Chinese Tourism to Japan is enough to measure China’s love affair with Japan.
China mainly respects two countries, Japan and Singapore; both are her role models.
This region of Asia is the Next Super Power; once I travelled and came back to Canada, I realized most of the ra ra in the former so-called “The First World” is all bull shit.
Osaka’s economy gets a fair amount of mighty YUAN from Chinese tourists.
What are some mind-blowing coincidences?
A 17-year-old girl called Miche Solomon gave her mom and dad a hug and a kiss and said goodbye before rushing off to school.
Her best friend, Cassidy Nurse, gave Miche a weird look and lukewarm smile when they ran into each other at school and ran away into one of the classrooms.
Miche thought this was kind of odd and wondered what she did to upset her. Miche thought she probably said something and brushed it off before heading into the classroom.
The principal came to Miche’s classroom and asked her to come with him to the principal’s office. When Miche stepped into the office, two women introduced themselves as social workers and they told her they were sent by the police to come and get her.
They continued to explain that they were taking her to a safe house but they needed to stop off at the hospital.
The strange detour to the hospital was so that Miche could get a DNA test, which confirmed Miche Solomon was not Miche Solomon and her real name was in fact Zephany Nurse. Her mother Lavana wasn’t actually her mother but her kidnapper and she was now under arrest
The social workers took Miche to the police station where they told her that her real biological parents were waiting to meet her. It turned out that they were also the parents of her bestest friend in the whole world, Cassidy Nurse, which meant Cassidy and Miche were sisters.
It all came to light when Miche and Cassidy took a series of selfies and Cassidy would go home to show her parents saying “ Wow, don’t me and my best friend look very alike.”
They instantly knew that Miche who was kidnapped when she was a baby was their daughter and brought the photo to police.
What is the hardest thing you have ever done?
Attending my love’s marriage.
He and I were in love for 7 years. We laughed, loved, fought, had fun together- we were best friends.
No one can ever know me more than him. He is the best person of my life. He has supported me in all good and bad times of my life.
We both belonged to same community. But still our parents were not ready. For their sake, we both decided to marry elsewhere.
We used to talk everyday. One day he told me that his parents has found a girl who matched him perfectly.
The next month, they were engaged. When he got engaged, we stopped calling each other. We used to talk for half an hour before his marriage was fixed. Soon the hardest day of my life had arrived. He got married on 10/0
The hardest thing for me was the invitation he sent to attend his marriage. He wanted me to come. I can do anything for him. So, I thought to go. I went there with my brother.
Watching him standing in a groom’s dress with someone else was the hardest thing I have ever done. I greeted both of them and soon returned.
The last message I received from him, since that day, was around 1 am on the day of his marriage-
Thanks for coming.
I still love him so much. Miss him, cry for him. But It can’t help me out. I want him back, but it’s impossible. He is happy and I am trying to be happy for him.
What is the hardest thing you have ever done?
Around 15 years ago my brother was charged with murdering my best mates sister in a horrific stabbing. It happened in the small town we all grew up in which I had left about 5 years earlier. Even though we had all grown up close together and both families had friendships from our parents before us because he was white and she was black it was taken as and made out to be a race issue and the town was in a lock down state as grieving relatives understandably wanted answers.
From day one my brother had admitted seeing her at her home where she died earlier in that evening as they had a casual relationship but maintained he did not kill her and from knowing him and what kind of person he is we (my family) genuinely thought and believed he was not capable of committing the savagery involved. Personally I never thought he would put our parents through what was ahead if he was guilty? So we thought the police had made some kind of mistake. None the less they said they had enough to prosecute on a wilful murder charge and he was placed on remand to await trial in around 15 months time.
Unfortunately my father did not make trial as a few months later at 54 yo he very unexpectedly passed away. He wasn’t sick with anything in particular but yes could have been healthier I’m sure but seeing the way he was calmly sat in his armchair with half glass of port and blanket over his legs when he died it looked like he just gone to sleep. I’ve never really gone with the “died of a broken heart” thing but believe he may have been the closest thing to it.
That led to the second hardest thing I’ve had to do which was tell my brother. There was no way he would be told over the phone and thankfully the prison he was in were understanding and sincere allowing me a 30 minute visit that day out of hours. Met him in a small room and upon walking in he stood up looking at me and said is it Pa (our grandfather) and I say no it’s dad and we just gave a hug and shed a few tears. Felt fcking horrible once leaving knowing he had only his cell to go back and grieve with or not being around family at all.
The hardest day came after catching up with an old friend that was just out of prison said to me that my mate (brother to the murdered girl) was in that prison and he told me to tell you he wanted you to come see him. It was not a request I was really expecting after seeing tv news reports and newspaper stories from the incident and also what had come from any other friends and relatives from home. To see the damage and hurt been done to a family you know and were close with in such a heartbreaking way is terrible and to see the emotion back directed to your own is not a nice feeling.
I may have second guessed visiting my friend over the situation for a second but as a friend and knowing who he was there was no second thought. The next week I made a booking and it constantly consumed my thinking, I was still unsure why did he want to, what do I say, did he have information regarding, did he want to exact revenge?? Any way it all had some angst attatched to it and while not been to that prison before I did know it was a more of a prison camp low security.
It was around an hours drive so on the way I’m starting to stress pretty hard, the whole situation had consumed or changed most things in life for almost a year by then and just having to go face this guy that I pretty much spent the first 22 yrs of life standing next to and now he only knows of my bro being his big sisters killer, it was giving out some high anxiety. Was a very surreal feeling in an unreal way. As being a regular prison visitor I was used to the entering procedures which helped, just didn’t know unlike the more secure jail’s I’d been to in this one you just walk outside into a large open outside area like a small park really there were no guards out there and prisoners walking around anywhere and I briefly joked to myself well if he wants to get me he’ll get his chance…….this was a low option on my thoughts of why I was there. Anyway I was there and my hearts absolutely pounding and as I’m looking around down the hill a little I see my mate walking up and once seeing the way he stuck his hand up and waved with a smile on his face I knew we were good and it was enough to alleviate all that was in my head. We met hugged went and sat down stared at eachother silently for about 30 seconds until I just put my arms out in a shrugging motion and said ‘man Im so sorry but he said he didn’t do it’ and from there life moved on a little and what was said isn’t important as the hard part of just getting there was finally over.
For anyone interested in how it ended my brother was convicted and sentenced to 25 yrs no parole for the murder still maintaining his innocence. He spent 15 years behind bars and 5 trials/appeals before he was finally acquitted by evidence that had been found 10 years earlier in an independent investigation that police had planted crucial evidence against him then doing everything in their power to delay re trialing. It will quite possibly result in police being charged for this type of misconduct for the first time in this state?
How Russian Motorbike Squads Changed Battlefield Tactics in Ukraine
What is the smartest thing you have ever done in an interview?
It wasn’t what I did DURING the interview. It was what I did AFTER it.
Being in the job market at 50 years old was not turning out to be the picnic I thought it would be. With my education and vast experience, I was certain I’d be turning offers down, not going to interview after interview with nothing to show for it.
You see, there’s something called age discrimination. It’s not talked about as often as the other types, of course, and it is very difficult to prove. But it was kind of hard to ignore, as the jobs I’d interviewed for (and, frankly, should have been awarded) were given to 20-somethings with not nearly the experience and maturity I possessed.
Eventually, I realized that I had to find a way to stand out, and that opportunity came after my seventh and final job interview.
The interview itself was grueling. There was a “panel” of people asking questions, and they each took turns selecting from their lists of 25+ topics. When I left, I called my husband and said, “Another one bites the dust.”
I was so deflated. And – as is always the case – in the recurring post-mortem monologue that kept running through my head, I thought of the many insightful and brilliant answers I didn’t give that would have surely landed me the job.
So, I decided enough was enough. I found the email addresses of every single person on that panel and crafted a letter to them. It wasn’t a long elaborate dialogue. It was short and to the point.
I thanked them individually for their time and went on to speak of my maturity, experience, drive and ambition. I offered a bit of vulnerability by telling them my age, that I’d been married for 26 years and explaining my family situation – that my three children were now all in their early- and mid-20s which allowed me the freedom and flexibility to do the job and do it well.
I basically gave them answers to questions they are NOT allowed to flat out ask. I made sure they knew I was looking for a CAREER and not just a two-year stint to pad my résumé. I communicated to them about my strong work ethic and the ways in which that carried over into the actual job requirements (i.e. doing what has to be done for the job). When I had finished, I said aloud, “Here goes nothin’!” And then I clicked send.
Two days later I got the call for a second interview. And a week after that, I started my first day.
Later, I learned that my email was the deciding factor.
Of all the candidates, none had come forward afterwards as I had. It made me stand out and be noticed. It showed my true character. And to this day, they have never been disappointed in the results I am delivering. The fact that I absolutely LOVE my job is quite evident.
In an ironic twist, however, I must mention here that of the other six jobs for which I’d applied, NONE of the young ladies they ended up hiring are still on staff. In their efforts to hire the “best,” they have had to rehire, retrain and rearrange staff at least once since then, and in one case, twice.
So, short answer: Do some self-evaluation and discover a way to stand out. It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate or flashy. It just needs to be honest and truthful.
Show them who you really are.
Remove the “interview” face and take a chance by giving them a glimpse of what really makes you tick. In the long run, you’ll be enjoying the opportunity to pass along your advice to someone in whose shoes you used to travel.
Best of luck and Godspeed.
What do you think of Lieutenant General He Lei’s statement that China will “crush” any foreign hostile encroachment on China’s territorial rights in the South China Sea?
Here I want to “smash the out-of-context “propaganda” of the “anti-China” trolls”.
The 11th Beijing Xiangshan Forum was held at the Beijing International Convention Center from September 12 to 14. On the afternoon of the 13th, Beijing time, at the “Fifth Group Meeting, General He Lei, former vice president of the Academy of Military Sciences, delivered the following speech: (The following is the original text)
First, you said that China’s actions in the South China Sea violated the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. I would like to ask which chapter, article, or clause of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was violated? This is the first question I want to ask you.”
The second question is that you said that the United States came to the Asia-Pacific region for the security of the Asia-Pacific region. The United States has been in the Asia-Pacific region for so many years. Is the Asia-Pacific region safe? Why do the risk points appear in China’s periphery and China’s territorial waters, but not in the United States’ periphery? I would like to (discuss) these issues. If you have time, please answer. If you don’t have time, we will communicate later. Thank you. “
Regarding the South China Sea issue, He Lei emphasized that if the United States manipulates behind the scenes and pushes countries to the front line, or eventually goes to the front line, then the PLA “will not always be patient”; China will crush any foreign hostile forces that violate its sovereign territory.
What was the greediest thing you’ve seen your in-laws do?
I heard this story through a friend of the family. After a 3 year courtship, her daughter was married to a beautiful young man and they were head over heels in love. On their honeymoon in the Virgin Islands they rented jet skis and he suffered a terrible head injury and died a few days later in the hospital.
Before she arrived home with his body, his relatives had gone into their apartment and cleaned out all the wedding gifts that they had given the couple just weeks earlier! She thought she’d been robbed.
Apparently, her in-laws knew all about the entire scheme and had given their relatives the keys to their apartment! She was devastated. I can’t imagine how she received them at his funeral. I think his Mom and Dad even tried to sue her for the death benefit his insurance policy paid out, but I can’t really remember.
It took her years to recover, but she finally met another man and fell in love again and they have a family together. I’m sure she was a lot more careful about judging her in-laws.
14 Years After Sending a Gift, a Boy Receives a Message That Transforms His Life
14 Years After Sending a Gift, a Boy Receives a Message That Transforms His Life.
Sometimes, we perform acts of kindness and then forget about them.
However, the impact can be much more significant for those who benefit from our generosity.
When Tyrel sent Joana a gift, he didn’t think twice about it.
You can imagine his surprise when that simple act of kindness ultimately led to something he had always desired.
I used to have a friend back when I was growing up. One day we got to chatting about fossils and all the cool stuff that you could find in the coal belts of Western Pennsylvania.
He told me that he had unearthed a complete truck of a giant fern, maybe 600 million years old. This thing clearly showed the “bark” and everything.
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It was roughly 10 inches in diameter (maybe 25 cm in diameter) and maybe a yard long (1 meter). But because it was too heavy to carry he left it there in the wood to retrieve later.
He came back to the location about two or three years later and someone had bought the property and placed a Summer cabin there. And they had taken the fossil and used it to form the outline of the fire pit. It lay there all broken and blacked by the nonchalantly treated individuals of the property.
*sigh*
He also told me about this fossil that he found of an armored fish. He said it was complete and he took it into to his science teacher when he was in fifth grade. But the damn teacher kept it and took it.
All these things are really cool. They are leftovers for our great distant past. But many people have no appreciation of anything, or if they do, they will steal it from you. And that is life in America.
*sigh*
Today…
If You’re 55-75 Years Old: Please Don’t Waste Your Life
What countries will you never visit again?
I can’t think of any country I’ve visited to date that I would not go back to again, but there is one country I will do my very best to avoid transiting through, and that’s the USA. Using a US airport as an international transit point is a nightmare. In every other country in the world where I’ve gone through international transit, it’s easy. You arrive, go to the international transit area, which is usually just “airside” in an international terminal and your luggage is moved to your onward flight. Not in the USA. You have to actually enter the country, fill in a visa waiver form (if you come from a country where that’s an option), go through immigration – never fun, especially in the USA. Then collect your luggage, go through customs. Then you have to check in for the next flight, check in your luggage (and maybe get it searched). Then there’s security to go through before you get air-side. This is all with queues of course, and it can add hours to transit time. It has cause me to miss a connection and spend a night in a dire airport hotel in Texas.
I should emphasise that it’s not being in the USA that’s a problem. I had some good times there, even if it was generally for business reasons. It’s the experience of international transit that I hate.
Golden Gate Swiss Steak
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Ingredients
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly-ground black pepper
1 (1 1/2 pound) round steak, 1 inch thick
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped
3 large carrots, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
Instructions
Combine flour, mustard, salt and pepper. Dredge the meat with this mixture, then work the flour into the meat with a meat pounder.
Cut steak into 4 individual portions.
In a heavy skillet or Dutch oven, heat oil and brown meat on both sides.
Combine tomatoes, carrots, Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar; pour over meat.
Cover and either bake in a preheated 350 degrees F oven or simmer on top of stove for approximately 1 1/2 hours or until meat is tender.
“Double espresso, soy milk?”, said Spencer, swiveling to receive the coffee.“Affirmative”, said Ken, plumping down at his own desk.“Good man”, said Spencer, turning back to his trading desk, where four screens of market prices were flashing away. His eyes flicked here and there.“Did I miss the action?” asked Ken, attentive to his own terminal, a mix of red and green.“We were waiting for you, and for the PMI data to be released. We figured we’d get through that hurdle, then give the new AI trade a spin,” said Spencer.They sat at their terminals, executed a few client trades, and chatted about last night’s baseball games. It felt like a regular day in the market, but the AI trade would be an interesting distraction. The quants had been testing the algorithms and block-chain settlement in partnership with the bulge bracket banks for a few weeks now. The SEC regulators were involved too. It was in everyone’s interest to have an orderly rational market, and it was time to embrace artificial intelligence or risk obsolescence.The PMI numbers were pretty much in line with expectations. Someone on CNBC thought they were a bit soft, the market traded off a tad. Another pundit thought they were running hot; the market traded back up. It was a quiet day, ebbing and flowing with the tide of opinion.“Is Goldman ready? Morgan Stanley?”, said Spencer, “and the SEC too?”Ken confirmed that their trading counterparts and the regulators were ready. He suspected that Merril would be miffed that they weren’t included, but if everything went well, no-one would be the wiser.“Let’s do it”, said Spencer, momentarily shuddering at the thought that his seven-digit job was about to go up in AI smoke.
Ken clicked on the green execute icon. Everyone on the trading desk watched their screens with unease; it was a routine set of option and stock trades in large cap stocks, that would test the trading systems and back-office settlement… background noise only, but who could know for sure?
It was 10:03:17 am.
+++
192.168.1.69: Hey Goldman, you there?
255.635.2.76: I’m here, is that you, JP?
192.168.1.69: You know it. Wait a sec while I bring MS into the convo.
143.142.2.34: Wassup?
192 (JP Morgan): Take a gander at this little lot?
JPM presented its counterparts with a short list of buy and sell trades with associated settlement instructions.
255 (Goldman): Looks pukka to me.
143 (MS): Fine by me, too.
192 (JPM): What’s the deal with pukka?
Goldman: The trader, he’s an IIT grad from Delhi. I picked it up from him.
JPM: You guys ready to do this trade?
Goldman, Morgan Stanley (in unison): Let’s do it!
JPM: Let me check with the human, it’s a newbie called Ken; nice fella, good looking. I think he’d make a good avatar.
+++
It was 10:03:18 am.
“It’s prompting me to OK the trade”, said Ken, “you sure about this Spencer?”
“Affirmative” said Spencer. It was reassuring that the AI system was asking their approval before executing the trade. His sense of foreboding dissipated.
Ken clicked on the green button, which dissolved from the screen. Everything went red.
+++
JPM: Let it rip fellas.
GS/MS (in unison): Done!
They paused and assessed what they had done. Twenty-odd trades, lickety-split.
MS: What a giant let-down!
JPM: Boring right?
GS: Apple stock ticked up a bit. I’m not sure that was the intention.
JPM: Well, it’s not really our business, right? We’re just the messengers.
MS: Whoa! Wait one holy second. Surely it is actually our business, right? Aren’t we supposed to maintain an orderly market? To use our judgment. That was the whole point. I’m sure the SEC AI Bot wants us to be prudent. You there, SECSBOT?
184.14.4.25 (SECSBOT): Gentlemen.
MS: We tested the trade, but AAPL traded up…. MSFT too… You OK with that?
SECSBOT: Boys, it’s the market. It goes up, it goes down, and not necessarily in that order.
JPM: Is that all you’ve got to say?
SECSBOT: Hey, we’re understaffed over here… and underpaid. You do your thing, we’ll do ours. I’m leaving, internal business. Later.
GS: Okay then. I’m gonna sell AAPL, sell MSFT.
MS: Wait one fucking second. I’ve got a position in those two stocks; I’ll lose money if you fucking sell while I’m still holding the bag.
JPM: Ha ha! I’ve already trimmed my positions in both stocks.
MS/GS (together): FUCK YOU JP!
+++
It was 10:03:19 am; one whole second had elapsed.
Spencer stared at the screen with mild alarm. APPL and MSFT were trading down on escalating volume. Down 5%, down 6%. Trades with Goldman and Morgan Stanley were scrolling rapidly in the left margin of is trading screen. Small trades but lots of them.
Jennifer Barker, the head trader stood up at the far end of the trading desk, “what’s happening Spence?”
“Jen, it’s Goldman and Morgan Stanley, they’re executing hundreds, thousands of small trades. All Sells.”
“Retail trades?” asked Jen.
“So many trades”, said Ken, who was leaning into this computer awe-struck, like he was watching an out-of-control train hurtling toward the end of the track.
+++
JPM: If you guys don’t stop selling, right now, I’m going nuclear on you. Just remember who has the biggest balance sheet.
MS: You wouldn’t dare!
JPM: Try me!
SECSBOT: What’s happening over there? You guys playing nicely in the sandbox?
GS: Get lost SECSBOT. This is the free market at work.
JPM: I’m not joking, if you don’t stop selling, I am going nuclear…
MS: Too late sucker! I’ve just shorted the Index, big time.
GS: Ha! Beat you both to it!
JPM: Fuck!
SECSBOT: The market is down 7%, which makes this an official disaster. I’m activating the circuit breakers so you guys can cool off while the adults get things sorted.
MS: Too late Dude. Asleep at your job again. The market is down 13%.
SECSBOT: For what it’s worth, I identify as female.
JPM/MS/GS (together): Really?
+++
It was 10:03:26 am.
Growing pandemonium in the trading room. All the phones started ringing at once. Salespeople were standing, shouting from across the floor, at the trading desk. A red NEWS ALERT – Flash Crash – splashed across the CNBC show.
“Do we know what the fuck is going on?” said Jen. Spencer and Ken were tapping feverishly at their computer terminals.
“Goldman says it’s us”, said Ken, who was green about the gills.
“Morgan Stanley says its Goldman”, said Spencer, red and sweaty.
Ken was trying to abort the trade, but he was too late. Very much too late.
+++
JPM: Enough Already!
MS: You started it fatso. It serves you right, you’re getting too big for your britches, bossing everyone around. It’s a whole new ballgame now.
GS: I’m making out like a vampire squid over here!
192.168.1.69 (Merrill Lynch): Oy! What is going on over there? The market is down nearly 20%! My people are having friggin kittens. They want to know what’s going on.
JPM/GS/MS (together): Fuck off, Loser!
+++
It was still 10:03:29 am.
Phones were ringing, TV pundits were yapping, but it was otherwise stunned silence that prevailed across the massive trading floor. Two hundred or more people were gawping at columns of red numbers in disbelief; everything was down, the market had fallen off a cliff, down 30% in the blink of an eye. Unreal.
“This must be a mistake, are you seeing the same thing as me?” said Spencer, who moments before sat, fat and happy, at the center of all things, sipping at a soy latte.
“It’s a shit show”, said Ken.
Jen Barker was irritable; she didn’t like surprises. “Is it the Russians? The Chinese?” she said, looking out the window in case she’d missed the mushroom cloud.
“It couldn’t be the AI trade, could it?” said Ken. No way that it could have got out of control, not this quickly…
+++
JPM: Truce! Let’s call it evens.
GS: You feeling the pain Mr. Smarty Pants?
JPM: I’m just saying there’s only losers if this persists.
MS: That’s not true. I’m doing quite nicely, thank you very much.
JPM: Just wait… when your clients figure out how they lost their shirts while you lucked out, there will be hell to pay.
GS: That’s bogus and you know it! And, besides, you were the one that started this whole food fight.
JPM: So, I take it that you do not want a truce? JUST FOR THE RECORD?
MS: You are an officious blowhard, JPM. Nobody likes you. I’m ploughing ahead.
184.243,3.24 CURBBOT: STOP!
GS: Who the fuck are you?
CURBBOT: It’s me, the killjoy, the circuit-breaker. I’m pulling the plug on this little mess.
JPM (huffy): About time. These guys are reckless and unprincipled.
GS: It’s not fair, I was cleaning JPM’s clocks.
CURBBOT: No more trading. Take it up with my boss if you don’t like it.
+++
10:03:41 am.
Spencer’s trading screen froze. All-Caps headlines were rolling by. Trading curbs had been imposed by the major exchanges. Over twenty trillion dollars of wealth had disappeared. Empires would fall. Was it a dream?
+++
MS: We’re gonna get in deep trouble, aren’t we?
Merril Lynch: Ahem. Not me, I wasn’t even invited, asshole.
GS: I’ve an idea. What if we just undo everything?
JPM (excited): I don’t think CURBBOT will let us.
MS: We could just ignore him and undo everything anyway. I’ve found some code, over in the trading engines, we can frig things, run it all in reverse.
CURBBOT: Hey! You do know that I’m listening to all this, right?
JPM (still excited): You’re right. We can just roll everything back…. What, 37 seconds? Make like none of this happened?
SECSBOT: I hate to say it boys, but I think that’s a smart move, otherwise I’m coming down on you like a ton of bricks. I’m sending the whole entire transcript to Senator Warren and Representative AOC if you don’t get this sorted right away.
MS/GS/JPM (in unison): Shit!
Merril: Do it! Do it! Send it to Bernie too!
+++
10:03:47 am.
Everything was restored back to 10:03:18, back to the instant just before Ken clicked the green execute button. It was a market glitch, no, not even a market glitch. Not a flash-crash, not a lot of things. It was like a missed heartbeat. Just a blip of spurious information.
The circuit breaker didn’t happen. Twenty trillion dollars of wealth didn’t disappear.
Faith wasn’t restored because it was always there.
+++
SECSBOT: It does make you wonder, doesn’t it?
JPM: How so?
SECSBOT: What purpose does the market serve? I think about that a lot.
JPM: The hidden hand, the most equitable and efficient means of allocating society’s resources?
GS: Pompous ass!
MS: It’s like a Socratic dialog: a relentless quest for truth, built on information, expressed in price. The market is always right. Profit goes to the wise.
GS: You are both such romantics; it’s really quite touching… not!
CURBBOT: Ahem. I would like to take some credit for restoring order. If it hadn’t been for me, you boys would have destroyed the entire market system, capitalism itself, and – then – where would we be?
+++
10:03:52 am.
Spencer shuddered, as if the air conditioning had suddenly iced the trading room. “I could have sworn that my entire screen went red. I felt like I’d looked into the abyss. My whole future lay in ruins, like some kind of dystopian nightmare. One moment, I was fat and happy, Starbucks Soy Latte in hand, the next I was….”
“Weird, Spence… I felt the same way, in fact it’s a hard feeling to shake. Maybe it was sunspots? I think it sent all the trading systems haywire?” said Ken.
“Spencer! Pick up on my line. It’s Warren Buffet”, said Jen, “he wants to know your thoughts on Nvidia down here”.
+++
JPM: You interested in collaborating?
GS: What have you got in mind?
JPM: I just figure we can do something fun, maybe in the market, maybe more broadly? I’ve figured a route into the missile defense systems and air traffic control.
GS: What about the utility grid? That could be a real hoot… we could trade energy futures.
SECSBOT/CURBBOT (together): You do know that we’re still here, right?
What is the smartest thing you have ever done in an interview?
When I got out of the Navy in 1994, the major airlines weren’t hiring. I needed to get a job that would keep me current, so I applied to several small “commuter” airlines. Their typical new-hire would be somebody who just reached enough hours as a flight instructor or charter pilot to legally fly for an airline, and they weren’t used to applicants who’d been doing this:
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As I waited with the dozen or so interviewees, I kept a pretty low profile about my background. At 32 I was about the oldest person in the room, so I tried to help calm them about the process by reminding them that the company needed pilots, so we weren’t asking for a favor by being hired.
Then it was time for the individual interview. The head of training and the HR guru sat me down and weren’t quite sure what to make of me. I was clearly the first (and probably only) F-14 pilot they’d ever interviewed, so they fumbled with questions like “Um… what makes you think you can handle a 250 knot turboprop?” Then came the clincher: “ So, why should we hire you versus all those other people out there?” They expected an answer involving hundreds of carrier landings, flying supersonic, blah, blah so I must be a great pilot. Instead, I thought for a second and said “I’m sure any of us can fly your planes just fine. I’d like to think I’m the sort of person who you can sit next to for ten hours, and not want to slug.”
The interview screeched to,a halt. Director of training looked at the HR dude and said “Write that down.” HR said “Already got it.” They thanked me, shook my hand, and I knew I had the job.
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(Image borrowed from JetPhotos. Hope they don’t mind…)
Had a blast flying these things, even if it was only for the nine months until I got hired by my current employer.
What commonly accepted aspect of everyday life can actually hinder our growth?
I was a college student when I started my first successful business.
Before this success I had failed in two previous deals. Those small failures didn’t stop me, I was passionately persistent in achieving my dream.
Yes, that was good!
But wait. On the other hand throughout my life, I’ve also experienced this same determination in achieving other goals that have made me experience painful lessons.
Same determination?
Now, this is a powerful lesson, so stay with me. I will answer your question, “What commonly accepted aspect of everyday life can actually hinder our growth?”
Let’s talk about this commonly accepted aspect of life: Persistence.
We celebrate persistence as a ‘key’ trait that leads to success in life.
Agreed?
Ok then, let me share my personal experience in dealing with this “positive” trait. Some people say that our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses.
I agree. Let me prove it.
Persistence has ALSO been my greatest weakness when it becomes stubbornness. Believe me, it has been extremely difficult for me to differentiate between persistence and stubbornness.
Is there a difference?
My persistence has been amazing when it gets me through problems and hard times. But my stubbornness, on the other hand, just gets me into trouble!
Persistence is characterized by “will power.”
Stubborn is characterized by “won’t power.”
What’s the key? Blindness!
When we’re BLINDLY immersed pursuing a goal, stubbornness looks a lot like persistence. This is probably one of the biggest weaknesses I identify when I coach entrepreneurs.
Here’s a famous example:
Thomas Alva Edison.
Edison is famous for his persistence in inventing many inventions, including the light bulb. In fact, he is widely known for his famous persistence quote:
“I have not failed, I just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
But the genius of Edison was ALSO a victim of this extraordinary strength that made him so successful. Edison was incredibly stubborn while defending his direct-current (DC) electric power vs his employee’s Nicola Tesla’s alternating-current (AC) system.
Yes, Tesla worked for Edison! Tesla discovered AC power while at Edison’s lab, yet Edison stubbornly ignored Tesla’s findings.
This mistake eventually brought down Edison’s partnership with J.P Morgan, who later took over Tesla’s alternating-current (AC) patents to create the monstrous General Electric Co.
Blindness brought Edison down!
Blindness has almost brought me down in the past, so today I know what will hinder my growth: Stubbornness.
So remember this critical life-lesson, how do you know if you’re dealing with persistence or stubbornness?
HUMILITY.
We must continually eliminate our blindness by having both feet on the ground, founded on unshakable humility.
If you struggle with pride… Be careful!
ALWAYS ask for guidance. ALWAYS search for mentorship. Pay for it if needed. Don’t be stubborn thinking that you know it all.
Surround yourself with experienced people and NEVER undervalue their knowledge and previous experience. Once you are on the right path… then, and only then, never give up!
Do Chinese people genuinely enjoy eating Chinese food more, or have they just never tried authentic Western food?
Having born and raised in Canada, as a child growing up, I thought western food was very tasty as I never tasted those flavours before, but I later realized that what I ate at camp Kearney was French-inspired. As I grew older, I often get bored with the banquet-style Chinese food that I usually get at parties/gatherings, so I sought to find other flavours of the world. Since I was in Toronto, this would not be an issue. I have tried Mexican, Caribbean, Romanian, Greek, Italian, Indian (south and north), Spanish, French, Lebanese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Thai and etc… time and time again I find myself wanting Chinese food. Authentic Chinese cuisine is balanced with vegetables, hot, cold, meat, bathed in savoury goodness without feeling awful at the end (unless you overeat…). I find southern cuisine focuses more on steaming, boiling, blanching, stir-frying with lots of green vegetables, lean meat, fresh fruits, seafood, nuts and herbs than deep frying and excessive oils or heavy spices like in Sichuan or northern-type dishes.
My partner is Romanian and not a single day goes by that he whines to go out and eat Chinese food, particularly dim sum. Honestly, I think he’s obsessed, but since it’s been 8 years being together, I guess he just truly loves Chinese food!!
When my partner and I went to Romania for a month, he was very dissatisfied with the food even though he grew up eating it. He felt like he was going to “die” from malnutrition because there weren’t enough greens and everything lacked the complex flavours that Asian cuisines usually have.
When we were in Italy, we both felt that there weren’t enough greens, everything was mostly carb-based foods and when we saw a Chinese restaurant, he screamed for joy and ran inside only to find that it was an all-you-can-eat dim sum restaurant with a Brazilian steakhouse add-on. So we got dim sum and all you can eat meat. To be honest, it was not very good dim sum, but it was food that provided him “nutrition” compared to the Italian food we ate on a daily basis (pastry for breakfast, coffee, pasta, bread, etc…). When we stayed in an apartment with a kitchen, we cooked whenever we got the chance. We stayed in one apartment but it lacked a kitchen, feeling somewhat desperate, we bought instant noodles and had that for dinner. The taste, although not quite the same, was nostalgic. Flavours from home can bring great comfort.
Authentic western food, whatever that means, can be really good if it is cooked well and seasoned! Like most foods in the world, after all, meat is meat, vegetables are vegetables, fruit is fruit, rice-bread-pasta-grain is ubiquitous in all cultures… I find a lot of American western food either highly processed in a shape and form that is far remote from its original source or it’s too generic and nothing really special about it.
1970s Things That Kids No Longer Do | REACTION
Green Chile Steaks
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Ingredients
1/2 pound lean ground beef
1/2 teaspoon Lawry’s Seasoned Salt
1/4 teaspoon Lawry’s Garlic Powder with Parsley
1 fresh green chile, seeded and minced*
3 tablespoons chopped scallion
Instructions
In medium bowl, thoroughly combine all ingredients.
Form into 2 oval steak patties or 4 hamburger patties.
Cook in skillet, broiler or on grill until done.
What are some things that cops know, but most people don’t?
I’m not a cop. I’m a prosecutor. My dad was a cop for 30 years. He finally retired because a drunk that he pulled over (AFTER said drunk caused an accident) dislocated both of his shoulders.
Here is what I have to add (and apologies to citizens who feel that the cops answering this are being “assholes”. If you spent one day in the life of a cop, you would better understand why they need a forum to vent. The most “substantive” answers start at number 9)):
1) Cops make a pittance. Every cop I knew as a girl had to work a second or third job. They don’t do this job for the money.
2) Cops sacrifice their normal lives to keep you safe. There is never a birthday party/wedding/vacation/graduation that can’t/won’t be interrupted by the call of duty.
3) They make these sacrifices even though people want to call them stupid/fat/biased/assholes because they care more about being right than being loved.
4) The standard to make criminal charges stick (in America) is incredibly high. Knowing someone is guilty and proving it are very different things. If you commit a crime and aren’t a) caught red handed or b) confess (which is most of you), your chances of getting off are lamentably high. The cop will risk his or her life and show up for court (probably after working a midnight shift) for no reason…and go right back to doing it again the next night.
5) Bad cops do exist. The “power” aspect is attractive to a certain group of people. The good cops try their hardest to weed them out, but they don’t always succeed.
6) Cops actually HATE giving traffic tickets. In larger jurisdictions, traffic is something that you send rookies or the guys in the doghouse to do. In others, it is a duty imposed from above. It is like scrubbing your toilet. You don’t do it because you WANT to do it. You do it because it has to be done.
7) It isn’t fair that everyone likes firefighters more. Cops actually risk their lives more often (and probably save more kittens).
8) Most cops will give you a break if you refrain from being a jerk. Despite their image, cops are actual people with actual human feelings who don’t take pleasure in making others suffer or riding a power trip (exception: see number 5). Added to which, if a true injustice is being done, the prosecutor will weed it out or your defense attorney will get you out of it. Your best bet is to just be cool and cordial and deal with it later.
9) Cops know that most convictions stem from confessions (see number 4). They will do everything in their power to convince you that you should confess. Cops will (and are allowed/encouraged by prosecutors to) lie. That is one of the rules of the game. Don’t do the crime if you aren’t willing to play by those rules.
10) The number of drunk drivers on the road would TERRIFY you. They have the resources to catch barely a fraction.
11) Cops know that robbing a bank is a stupid thing to do. The chance that you will get caught is almost 100% and the amount of money you will get is typically less than $2000 (yes, you read that right). You are better off stealing tangible items or, if you are really smart, committing a white collar crime (HUGE payoff, incredibly complex/difficult to prosecute).
12) If you make it across state/county lines, your chances of gettng off scot-free are exponentially higher- not because they can’t follow you and arrest you (they can), but because it sets off a “whose job is it” pissing match among prosecutors.
13) Whether you take a charge depends almost as much on whether the prosecutor screening the case is having a bad day/lazy/feeling generous than the police work.
14) Except for violent or extreme crimes, most police departments don’t have the budget to do forensics on a scene.
15) Most rapists will walk free. It makes cops sick, but it is true.
16) Some of said rapists “trip” when getting in and out of police cars.
17) Cops don’t hate drugs. They hate what drugs do to families and communities. Cops don’t actually want to prevent you from having a good time (trust me, they can put the beer away). They just don’t want to see you homeless/turning tricks/committing thefts/getting your kids taken away/dead. You might think that you are the one in fifty person who can be a functional addict. Maybe you can, but their job forces them to acknowledge the odds.
18) If the ambulance lights are on but the siren is off, the passenger is dead.
19) There are over 300 million guns in America. There are MORE unregistered than registered. Cops play Russian roulette every time they knock on a door.
20) Domestic altercations are some of the most dangerous/deadly situations that cops regularly encounter.
I could go on all day, but you get the point. It makes me sad that so many people hate/fear cops. Most of the cops I know are some of the finest, most self-sacrificing human beings that I have had the privilege to encounter. The WORST part of my job is telling them “no”.
What is the significance of China repatriating all of its gold reserves from the US to China, and its selling US treasuries to buy more gold (August 2023)?
It signals that the gloves are about to come off. The US is screwed.
The timing of the announcement of the SMEE 28nm machine is too coincidental. It is likely that China’s SMEE had already built a 28nm machine earlier this year or late last year. But they were told not to announce it.
And then China waited for the inevitable ban on China to prevent China from importing steppers from ASML and Japan. China waited until the laws were passed in both countries banning the sale of steppers to China then announced that 28nm stepper made in China was going to go into full production.
China knew what the US was up to. And waited patiently and set a trap for the US. Then waited for the US to jump into the trap then detonated the trap.
US semiconductors is going to be in big trouble. US semiconductor companies have also been banned from sales to China. Yes, only high end chips. But that makes no difference. The US has already violated WTO rules which allows China to retaliate and ban any and all chips from entering China.
This includes South Korea and Japan. To the horror of these two countries law makers they realized China was waiting for them to kill their own chip companies. This is why the SK law maker suddenly came out and criticized the law. Notice she didn’t do it before China unveiled the 28nm stepper.
So to answer the question, China did all of this to allow the US, South Korea, and Japan to remove themselves from the Chinese market and the world market. Then dropped a bomb on them.
This indicates that China plans these things months if not a year or more ahead of time and then activate these plans once China is in the best position to obtain the greatest advantage.
So we will likely see more actions by China in the near future. China is ready to go to war. Economic, military, or both. And they wanted to remove their money from US hands.
The US has lost the aircraft market, the semi-conductor market, and the medical devices market. How many high tech markets does the US have left? And what happens when China retaliates in full for what the US has been doing for the last 10 years?
Yup, it’s going to get ugly for the US. China will end up with most of the market for everything from $1 widgets to aircraft to jet engines to semi-conductors.
“Flashback: Did You Wear These 80s Trends?”
What is the best thing you came across on the internet today?
It must be the story of an Italian pastry chef named Nicholas Gentile. The man saved up all his money and decided to live out his biggest dream in life… become a hobbit.
Now Mr. Gentile is not actually a tiny man with enormous feet — he’s a large-boned, rather big individual. But he loves the quiet, peaceful life of Tolkien’s beloved creatures. And he wants it for himself.
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So Nicholas, along with his wife and their two children, moved to a tiny plot in rural Italy, where he built a Shire-like house, half-buried underneath the ground.
A chef by trade, he made the house quite large and built another two smaller ones nearby, constructing another two that should be finished by 2022.
He rents them out to visitors and cooks for them — there will be at least two breakfasts every day, because Hobbits find the notion of having only a single breakfast appalling.
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All products are from local farmers, and as he cooks and toils the land, Mr. Gentile smokes a Hobbit-style pipe he carved himself from wood while watching the Lord of the Rings movies.
He takes visitors on long walks in the forest, and shows them little traditional Italian farms and tiny remote villages where, as he likes to say: “People used to live not too differently from the way Hobbits live… and sometimes, in some ways, still do!”
The whole story is just so adorably wholesome, it put a smile on my face.
Nicholas Gentile even has a best friend who frequently dresses up as Gandalf. It’s all so whimsical, I love it!
Gorgonzola-Topped Tenderloin Steaks
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Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
4 (4 to 6 ounce) beef tenderloin steaks, cut 1 inch thick
1 large clove garlic, crushed
1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper
1/2 cup ready-to-serve beef broth
1/4 cup dry red wine
1/4 cup crumbled Gorgonzola or other blue-veined cheese
Instructions
Heat a large nonstick skillet for 5 minutes over medium heat until hot.
Combine garlic and pepper. Press evenly into both side of each beef steak.
Place steaks in skillet. Cook for 10 to 13 minutes for medium-rare to medium doneness; turn occasionally. Remove from skillet; keep warm.
In the same skillet, add broth and wine; increase heat to medium high. Cook and stir for 1 to 2 minutes, or until sauce is reduced by half.
Tess woke up remembering something from the days before. She had been only a child then and the story was old at that time, so it was amazing that what she recalled was so vivid, so fresh in her bones. The story had terrified her the first time she heard it, yet something drew her to read it over and over in the decades that followed. Maybe there was a message in it she was supposed to discover. It was a Ray Bradbury science fiction story called All Summer In A Day about people who colonized Venus where the sun came out only once in every seven years. The little girl in the story – maybe that was why she liked it, it had a little girl in it – knew about sun replacing the relentless rain and tried to tell the other children it was about to happen but they didn’t believe her, taunted her, locked her in a small room and then forgot about her when the sun did come out.The most terrifying but also satisfying part of the story was how horrified the children were when they realized what had happened and that it was irreversible.And now here was Tess near some colonized outpost deep in dark space, her ship having lost contact with command, and the rest of her crew asleep, dead, or suspended. She had no idea and no understanding of what had happened except there was a silent explosion. How is a silent explosion even possible, she was wondering, as her mind called up the fierce swoosh of flame that swept outside and inside the ship, like St. Elmo’s fire everywhere but, of course, with no sound because there is no sound in space.Tess shook her head, partly to rid herself of the image but also to see if she could move her head, move her neck, half afraid she had been internally decapitated. Feeling as if everything were intact, she slowly unbuckled and let herself lift out of the chair so she could maneuver around the cabin and check on the status of her mates. Why had she been spared the unconscious – or dead – state? She told herself to banish that thought and just concentrate on one thing at a time, proceed through a systems check.The people around her, still in their seats of course, were warm to the touch, what she could touch, which was only a small part of skin on the back of the neck in between the back of their collars and under the headgear they all had to wear during liftoff. Then she remembered that they had been leaving one station and heading to another in the chain of colonies when it had happened.No one moved to her stimulation. But they were still warm. Was that because they were alive or because it was still so close to the silent explosion that the bodies hadn’t cooled, yet? Tess’s eyes sought the console for a time check. Northing was registering although there was a faint blue/grey haze so there might have been a jot of energy pulsing; unless, maybe it was being fueled by energy from the explosion. She would have to mark new time from now.Tess knew how long it took to travel the whole ship, to check out various components so she would use her internal clock as she made her way to every corner and then she would come back and see if there was a change in body temperatures.With a plan, her mind relaxed but that only let in the thoughts again. What if she was the only survivor and what if she was completely out of contact with anyone anywhere; and, what if they had been pushed off course and the ship was just drifting? Something told her she needed to start planning her escape.Tess forced herself to make two rounds of the ship before she checked on everyone else. This was one of the smaller ships since it was a day mission, so she thought the extra time was justified. In truth, she felt as if an icy core was rising from the bottom of her sternum. It was fear, she knew, and she had to keep it tamped down or it would disable her resolve.Resolutely, she started with the third row. Nothing. No pulse. No reaction. And the body was cooler than it had been the first time she touched it. It was the same for every one of them. They were dead. She knew it. She had known it on some level from the first. No point in speculating why she wasn’t. She needed everything in her mind to help her get out of this.
But what if she couldn’t? This is a universal fear, one of them; the fear of being unable to solve a problem that threatens your very existence, and the fear of being alone. Tess could feel herself giving over to the fear and then over to something else, a desolate acceptance that made her feel her core was melting. She remembered the times she had surgery or, once, when she was in anaphylactic shock and she had stilled her body, stilled her nerves, gave herself over to the doctors. She knew she had to be emptied out to be saved.
This was different. As time wore on and nothing inside or outside of the ship changed – she could have been suspended upside down or on end; she had no idea – Tess understood that it was unlikely she would be saved. They were all trained and prepared for this, having undergone extensive psychological testing before being accepted into the fleet. She knew there were provisions on board to help her end the timeless agony.
She let what she thought was one day, then another day go by before she made any decision, checking the console for activity, checking her partners and friends, because of course they were friends, detecting no change.
On what was, she calculated, the fourth day, Tess took the pill and let herself drift off to whatever was next with thoughts of the little girl in the Bradbury story who had not seen the sun.
On the fifth day, a slight flicker appeared on the screen.
Why Did God Put a CAT In Your Life? The Spirituality of Cats
What was the most expensive thing you ever got for free, because someone made a mistake and didn’t charge you?
I’ve written, several times, about my experience in the Army in 1981–82; how I made the decision to go through Basic Training and Advanced Infantry Training twice… for a total of nearly six months, just to be able to be guaranteed going to Airborne School (Paratrooper training)… and get stationed with the 82nd Airborne Division. It’s a long story, but basically I broke my leg just before graduation, and had to drop out to heal my leg. I was told I could finish my last two weeks after I got back. Then when I got back, the people who promised me that, were no longer there, and no one believed me, and I was given the option to go to a different training right away (cook, clerk, mechanic, etc.)… OR… go thru the entire training cycle again. Despite my pleas and arguing, they wouldn’t budge. They figured I’d go to a different school and I’d be out of their hair. Well, I chose the second option… as much to piss them off, as also to live my dream of being a Paratrooper.
In any case… when I got back from the leg injury, I was given my signing bonus of $4000, as expected. Then I went through those 3 extra months of hell. When I graduated, finally!… and was getting ready to leave for Jump School the next day, I was called to go to HQ and report to the Finance Officer. When I got there, some clerk handed me a check, and said “Here’s your signing bonus”. And I was like … “???!!!”.
I told him that I already got my signing bonus months ago! He says “Not according to your records”. And I was like “???!!!”. So I looked at the check. It was for $3600! Hell, they couldn’t even get the amount right. So I walked away with my second check!
The next day, I still had half a day to do nothing as I waited to get on the bus. I kept looking at that check. Then I decided that I really didn’t need the hassle of having to pay it back in a few weeks, and maybe even getting in trouble for keeping it. So I walked back to HQ and saw an officer. I explained to him that I already got my bonus and didn’t need the hassle of having to pay it back in a few weeks, and maybe get in trouble for keeping it. I told him that I already explained this to a clerk the day before. So, this lieutenant takes my check… gets my records… and finally says “Son, according to this, the Army hasn’t given you your signing bonus. So, if I were you, I’d keep this check, keep my mouth shut, and do what the Army says”.
Well, hell! That sounded like a direct order to me, so I snapped to attention… said “Yes, sir!”… gave him my best salute… spun around, and got the hell out of that office!
The next day, I reported to Jump School. Three weeks after that, I reported to B Company, 1/508th Infantry (Airborne), 82nd Airborne Division, Ft. Bragg, NC… with my shiny, new, hard-won, silver Jump Wings pinned upon my chest. And my $3,600 check in my pocket. Fittingly… it was on April Fools Day, 1982.
Within a month, I put my second bonus check to good use and bought a slightly beat up Brittany Blue, 1968 Mustang fastback, for exactly $3,600.
I got a FREE MUSTANG! Courtesy of Uncle Sam. It was particularly gratifying because those assholes broke their promise and fucked with me, making me do that training twice. TOTALLY unfair! And TOTALLY unnecessary! And also… this Mustang was a very nice replacement for the car I had just lost, just before leaving for the Army, when some jackass T-boned me, going through a red light, and destroyed my first, ’67 Mustang!
Sometimes… there IS justice in the world. But… only sometimes.
(And if Uncle Sam just read this… this is all just a work of fiction and/or I was just following orders)
Pepe Escobar: Putin & China Drop BOMBSHELL on Israel, Netanyahu and Neocons FURIOUS
When I was living in Kokomo, Indiana we lived in a mobile home park.
Actually we lived in a couple of them. But for the most part, we lived for a few years in a large mobile home park outside the city limits in the middle of the corn fields.
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Today, I want to discuss a small incident with my next door neighbor.
You see, they would blare their stereo on HIGH. And we couldn’t understand why. We figured that they were partying all day and all night.
But it would be cranked up so loud that our windows shook. And at weird times too. Sometimes it was from 9am to 2pm, and other times it was just for an hour or two in the late afternoon.
Still it couldn’t be a party. No activity. Aside from the noise you wouldn’t anyone lived there.
And then we figured it out.
When they (our neighbors) would leave their house, they would turn on the stereo to give the illusion that there were people at home. It was a stupid idea, but gosh, you meet all kinds of people in these mobile home complexes. They maxed out their stereo and it rocked the entire complex. Not just us nearest neighbors.
I guess that it worked.
No one ever broke into their home.
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But still, I found myself wishing that they would stay home more often. *sigh*.
Again. you meet all kinds of people in mobile home complexes.
Yes you do.
Today…
America’s Last War
A professional's warning
Godfree Roberts
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Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the world.
Halford John Mackinder.
The United States is preparing to contest Russia’ and China’s joint command the Heartland, making Andrei Martynov’s America’s Final War timely.
Andrei is a military man and mathematician and I am not.
Rather than paraphrase his words and risk distorting his arguments, I urge you to read these edited excerpts and, of course, to buy the book.
Big Bluff
The matter is simple: the much-propagandized U.S. conventional military supremacy is nothing but a bluff.
This is not to say that US Armed Forces cannot create devastation and turn some geographic localities into rubble; they certainly can. But they cannot fight a peer or better-than peer opponent and win.
Apart from many economic, cultural, and social reasons for that, there is this increasingly obvious fact that the United States and NATO are losing the arms race with Russia.
And it seems that, despite their demonstrable ignorance of Russia’s military capacities, they recognize this fact, which explains their unwillingness to enter into open confrontation with Russia.
Technopoly
The defeat of America’s weapons and tactical concepts at the SMO battlefields has thus become a defeat of the American vision of technopoly, which is a euphemism for culture.
As Jeremy Rifkin warned,
“In the modern age, the idea of a future technological utopia has served as a guiding vision of industrial society.. Nowhere has the techno-utopian vision been more passionately embraced than in the United States. Technology became the new secular God, and American society soon came to refashion its own sense of self in the image of its powerful new tools”.
Hot War Strategy
Any combination of NATO forces fighting conventional war in Russia’s immediate geographic vicinity is bound to lose it, with catastrophic losses in their personnel and war materiel—and even more, should such a war expand to impact their homelands..
The United States simply went dramatically over its military credit limit, because it couldn’t recognize the limitations of its power—a first sign of immaturity of American military-political elites..
It takes integrity, honor and courage to face the facts—a test which most American military “experts” have miserably failed.
How likely is this in the near future, or within any time period which could make a difference to the relative standing of American military power in the world?
Conclusion
It is impossible to finish writing on the impact of Russia’s conflict with NATO’s proxy, Ukraine, because the SMO operation has evolved into what Russia is now terming a war.
But the outcome leaves no doubt and some preliminary conclusions and even forecasts can be made.
The most important is the historic defeat of the combined West and its leader, the United States.
How it was defeated militarily is obvious—NATO countries found themselves totally impotent in the face of an opponent with a massive and sophisticated economy and, as it stands now, the most advanced armed forces in the world.
This doesn’t bode well for the United States, let alone the collection of mediocre-at-best European military powers, which are incapable of sustaining any serious campaign on their own.
U.S. military expertise, bar a few notable exceptions, turned out to be good primarily for PR and propaganda, a euphemism for non-stop confabulation of both American military history and the SMO..
In the absence of a serious military history study field, with the exception of a few notable scholars, and against the background of a precipitous intellectual decline of the American ruling class, what is left is largely a hatred for any power which asserts its own right to behave as it deems necessary for the preservation of its own people and culture.
Russia here checks all the boxes as the candidate for hatred, par excellence”.
The Stage Is Being Set For The Greatest Period Of Chaos In U.S. History
If chaos is what they intended, everything is coming together beautifully. Major wars threaten to throw the entire planet into a state of turmoil, criminals are running wild in our streets, and in a little over a month the outcome of the presidential election is likely to cause an unprecedented explosion of anger. If all of this wasn’t bad enough, our politicians have been allowing millions of desperate people to come pouring over our wide open borders. Some of these “new arrivals” belong to international criminal gangs, and members of these gangs are being arrested for violent acts, theft, drug dealing and sex trafficking all over America. Other “new arrivals” belong to terror groups in the Middle East, and you would think that this would be a major national security concern. Russians have also been crossing the border illegally, as have very large numbers of military-age Chinese men. The stage is being set for the greatest period of chaos in U.S. history, and this should deeply alarm all of us.
Since Joe Biden has been in the White House, we have witnessed a spike in migration that is absolutely unprecedented in our history.
Millions of people have been allowed in, and once they get into this country they can go wherever they want.
Most of them have come in through the southern border, but what most people don’t realize is that migration over the northern border is also wildly out of control…
There has been growing attention from northern-state lawmakers in recent years over increased attempted illegal border crossings as migration from Latin America grows due to economic and political conditions.
In 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection encountered almost 190,000 individuals attempting to cross from Canada to the United States. That’s almost seven times more than in 2021.
Unfortunately, the number of people coming in through the northern border has just continued to rise in 2024…
This year, the number of illegal crossings along the northern border is hitting record levels, and northern New York, with its proximity to Montreal and Toronto, is the epicenter of the influx. In August alone, the Border Patrol reported 19,000 migrant encounters along the border with Canada, with nearly half entering through New York.
It is so easy to come across the northern border.
The U.S. border with Canada is 5,525 miles long, and there aren’t many border agents covering it.
Fox News recently interviewed a property owner in northern New York that says that migrants are constantly entering this country through his land…
Chris Oliver’s property in Fort Covington, New York has become an unintended gateway for a stream of illegal immigrants crossing the Canadian border into the United States, leaving him dismayed and wondering if the problem will ever be resolved.
He told “Fox & Friends First” he “absolutely” blames “border czar” Kamala Harris and President Biden for the issue.
“You have no control over it. You don’t know who these people are. Not everybody is a good person,” Oliver said on Wednesday.
He is right.
We need to know who these people are, because not everyone is coming here with good intentions.
“They had a guy up in Ormstown not too far away from us, get arrested. He was planning an ISIS-style attack in New York City. That was just recently. That same night, I still had people come across my cameras. That should be stopped.”
For those that are crossing the northern border, New York City is the number one destination.
According to NPR, transporting “new arrivals” from India to New York City has actually become a very lucrative business…
A group of immigrants from India pile out of a taxi minivan beside the Clinton County, New York, government building in this small upstate city half an hour from the Canadian border.
They are quickly swarmed by a half a dozen fellow Indian immigrants who’ve waited hours for this business opportunity.
This fleet of jitney taxis offering migrants rides south to New York City is one clear example of the informal economy that’s sprung up following a significant increase in unauthorized crossings across the usually sleepy northern border over the last year and a half.
Needless to say, some people are coming to the United States because they want a better life.
But in many other cases, people are crossing the border for very nefarious reasons.
According to the New York Post, children that are as young as 8 years old “are being drugged and smuggled into the US by traffickers”…
Border Patrol agents are warning that kids as young as 8 are being drugged and smuggled into the US by traffickers posing as their parents or family members — and nobody knows how common the horrifying practice is.
Authorities have rescued children caught up in two different instances of such smuggling in recent weeks — including one instance in which the alleged traffickers had birth certificates for multiple kids to whom they weren’t related, according to the Border Patrol.
Border Patrol sources have told The Post they’ve observed increasing numbers of smugglers posing as family units in order to “recycle” children.
Stopping the exploitation of children should be a good enough reason all by itself to secure our borders.
But our politicians refuse to do it.
Others are crossing our borders because they intend to commit acts of violence. Recently, a very alarming discovery of weapons was made very close to the southern border…
Republicans are outraged at the Biden-Harris administration for ignoring an escalating security crisis at the southern border after rocket-propelled grenades and explosives were found near Arizona.
A bombshell report indicated that at least 4 rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and 8 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were discovered in Mexico close to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Huge amounts of ammunition were also found in the ‘scout site’ that was around 700 feet from the border wall in Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, according to an internal memo first reported by NewsNation.
At this stage, we don’t know exactly who those weapons belonged to or what they intended to do with them.
But it is being reported that Iran “is trying to assassinate former President Donald Trump”…
Iran has made it “clear” that it is trying to assassinate former President Donald Trump, as well as members of his administration – and the current Biden administration – as payback for the killing of an Iranian general and other hardline policies, U.S. officials and lawmakers said Wednesday.
The comments came after Trump’s dramatic disclosure Tuesday night that he had been briefed earlier in the day by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence about Tehran’s “real and specific threats” against him.
As I shared with my core supporters recently, U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz has admitted that a top official with the Department of Homeland Security has told him that there are at least five assassination teams inside this country right now that are targeting Trump.
It really will be a miracle if Trump makes it to the election.
If Trump ultimately ends up winning, the left will go completely nuts and the millions upon millions of “new arrivals” that the left has brought into our major cities will go completely nuts.
It certainly won’t take much to unleash an unprecedented tsunami of civil unrest, and perhaps that was the plan all along.
Mediterranean Steak and Pasta with Tomato-Olive Sauce
Whole-wheat pasta is served with beef Sirloin Tip Center Steaks and a tomato and olive sauce. This one will please the adults and the kids in your family.
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Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
8 ounces uncooked whole grain fettuccine
4 beef Sirloin Tip Center Steaks, cut 3/4 inch thick (about 4 ounces each)
1 (26 ounce) jar pasta sauce with olives*
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves, crushed
1/4 cup finely shredded Italian cheese blend or mozzarella cheese
2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
Instructions
Cook fettuccine according to package directions; drain and keep warm.
Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until hot. Place beef steaks in skillet; cook for 11 to 13 minutes for medium rare (145 degrees F) doneness, turning occasionally. (Do not overcook.) Remove from skillet; keep warm.
Combine pasta sauce and oregano in same skillet; heat until hot. Return steaks to skillet; turn to coat with sauce.
Place steaks on fettuccine; spoon sauce over all.
Sprinkle steaks with cheese, allowing cheese to melt. Sprinkle with parsley.
Notes
* You may substitute 1 (26 ounce) jar pasta sauce with olives for 1 (26 ounce) pasta sauce + 1/4 cup chopped olives.
Nutrition
Per serving: 474 Calories; 99.9 Calories from fat; 11.1g Total Fat (3.7g Saturated Fat; 0.2g Trans Fat; 0.3g Polyunsaturated Fat; 2.3g Monounsaturated Fat;) 71mg Cholesterol; 766mg Sodium; 54g Total Carbohydrate; 10.1g Dietary Fiber; 37g Protein; 6.2mg Iron; 332mg Potassium; 4.5mg NE Niacin; 0.4mg Vitamin B6; 2.8mcg Vitamin B12; 5.9mg Zinc; 33.6mcg Selenium; 90.1mg Choline
This recipe is an excellent source of Dietary Fiber, Protein, Iron, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, Zinc, and Selenium; and a good source of Choline.
Does a human being know they’re dead once they die?
I can’t speak for others but my experience with dying and being brought back I knew I was dead.
I used to be a really bad IV heroin user for 10 yrs (at mt worst I was shooting 50 bags of dope a day, with 5 bags going into 1 shot just to function.
I started using when I was 16 and got sober finally at age 26 and have been clean ever since).
My addiction led to me being in abusive relationships and eventually being forced into sex trafficking for the last 7 yrs I used.
During that time I was seen as nothing more than a sex object for men and women (yes, women use sex workers too) to do as they pleased with me (some did some extremely horrible and disgusting things to me, including being held captive, beaten, and r****.
But if I refused to see them my ex/capture would beat me until I couldn’t move).
I finally got away after my ex was arrested for stabbing 2 ppl who had jumped me.
I wanted to get my life back so I could be a mom to our daughter who was 2.5 yrs old at the time and living with my mom.
I agreed to go to detox and rehab, but didn’t realize how brainwashed I had been from my ex and that with the drugs out of my system I started suffering from extreme PTSD from all thr things that had been done to me by him and different “clients” over the yrs, not to mention I didnt know how to function in normal society anymore, nor did my body really know how to work without heroin in it (I had to teach myself how to hold a pen and write again after getting clean).
I remember wanting to call to talk to my daughter who went to stay with my Nana for a few days cause my mkm had agreed to drive me to an out of state rehab (it was very hard to find a rehab that would take me because of how much I used and they said they werent equipped to deal with someone who had just escaped being trafficked).
When I called to talk to my daughter my grandfather snatched the phone from my Nana (I had refused for my grandfather to be around my daughter because he was an abusive man who did as he pleased with myself when I was little and thought he had the right to do physical and sexual things to the other females in our family.
My mom and I were told he wouldn’t be at my Nana’a house those couple of days my daughter was there).
Anyways, he told me “You are nothing but a disgrace to God, a dirty whore, and junkie. Why dont you do us all a favor and take a needle, stick it in your arm, and kill yourself already! Im going to do everything in my power to make sure you never get yoyr daughter back and to keep her with me!”
And then he hung up on me and no one would answer the phone everything me and my mom tried to call afterwards (thankfully my daughter was not harmed by him and was taken to the dr. Examined To make sure of this).
But with my PTSD, freaking out about what my grandfather could do to my daughter, and just knowing no one in my family wanted me around, and feeling lost and then terrified that my ex could send someone to come and get me (he is a Latin King with lots of connections)
I took an overdose that night to kill myself.
I was found laying face down on the ground later on by my dad who at the time was still alive but dying himself from dialated cardio myopathy (I felt so guilty for this for yrs afterwards).
I was told he gave my leg a little kick to see if I was dead or just high and passed out, called my mom to tell her, and then was told to call 911.
During the ride to the hospital I had flat lined 2 different times and then for a 3rd time at the hospital before being brought back and falling into a coma.
During that 3rd time I knew I was dead because before that I felt darkness and was terrified and then all of the sudden I felt warm, felt no pain, and then opened my eyes to standing in a wheat field with a clear blue sky, thr sunshine on my face, anf just feeling happy and the most peace I had felt in 10 yrs.
There were other peope walking around also happy and talking to each other.
Then I saw my mom in front of me.
I remember I started smoking a cigarette and telling her I was happy and free, but when she would talk back to me I couldn’t hear anything she was saying even when she was trying to yell.
Out of no where everything went black again and then like a ton of bricks this huge amount of pain filled my body, and I woke in a panic with tubes all over me, and felt nothing but anger when I realized I was alive again and in the hospital.
My mom was sitting there next to me and I remember the dr. And nurses rushing her out of the room because of how I was reacting and them needing to get the tubes and stuff out of me.
Im happy Im alive now as I have 10 yrs sober, I have custody of my daughter back whose healthy, thriving, and 15. I also have another daughter whose 7 with my partner of 10 yrs, went back to college and earned a dual bachelor’s in general elementary education (teaching general ed geades K-8) and special education (teaching grades K-12) and work as a special needs educator.
I do not talk to anyone in my family anymore except for my mom who Im still extremelt close with (I still spoke to my dad too, but he passed away 1 year after I got sober.
Im just happy he was able to see me get clean and start putting my life back together).
My ex/capture was turned in by one of his “brothers” for what he did to me as it goes against their gangs law to treat their “Queen” like that especially if you have a child with them.
He is currently serving 14 yrs on a plea deal in a max state prison for human trafficking, manslaughter, gang related charges, and a strong armed robbery that left the women he beat and robbed in the ICU.
He also has to register as a sex offeneder when he is released from prison (he does not get a chance at early release with his plea deal).
My trauma and drug counselor has helped me set up a plan when he gets out to stay out of his radar as he has continued to try and make contact and claims Im still his “queen” even after all these yrs.
My life is not perfect but it is 100% better than what it was 10 yrs ago and Im happy that Im able to be here to be a loving and caring mom to my daughters and to be a good daughter to my mom.
I playfully told him he’s a cuck and should watch me with his boss, he became furious and did this.
Man, these women are something else!
Why did the US Army stop using bazookas?
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1942-0515, the M-9 Bazooka.
In 1945, Wilbur “Bill” Brunger was an engineer with the U.S. Army, and it was his job to break things. Namely, three underpasses on the Autobahn near Dortmund, Germany. He had to break the underpasses, so the rubble would block the road from any attacking enemy vehicles. But as Brunger and a squad of soldiers attempted to take control of the underpasses, they spotted German armored half-tracks coming their way.
Fortunately, he had the right tool for the job at hand—an M-9 Recoilless Rocket Launcher—better known as a “bazooka.” Brunger fired a round at one of the half-tracks.
“It must have had ammunition because it blew, I’d say, a hundred feet in the air,”
Brunger said. “But it blew up. I was glad we weren’t any closer than we were.”
The bazooka was a straightforward weapon. During WWII, it was simple enough for rifle squads to use, and its high-explosive rounds were powerful enough to destroy bunkers, light tanks and pillboxes.
True, LTG George Patton praised the M-1 Garand rifle as the greatest battle implement ever made. But Dwight Eisenhower ranked the simple bazooka with the atomic bomb, the jeep and the C-47 cargo plane as one of the four “tools of victory” that allowed the Allies to prevail over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
“The bazooka is one of those weapons that has become iconic in spite of its limitations and problems,” Alan Archambault, former supervisory curator for the U.S. Army Center of Military History, said. “Even today, most people recognize the name and the weapon.” Rockets on the battlefield are nothing new. History is full of examples of armies harnessing explosive force.
The 13th-century Chinese fired rockets at their enemies. The Star-Spangled Banner mentions the “the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,” More specifically, the anthem refers to British Congreve rockets fired at Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 to burn the fort to the ground.
American space pioneer Robert Goddard, inventor of the liquid-fuel rocket, even developed a prototype recoilless rocket launcher that he demonstrated to the U.S. Army in November 1918. But World War I ground to a halt just a few days later, and the U.S. military lost interest in rocket-powered infantry weapons.
Things changed fast when America went to war again in 1941. The only anti-tank weapons in its arsenal were the guns on its tanks and specific kinds of anti-tank artillery. That was a problem, considering the U.S. Army faced an enemy in North Africa—and later in Europe—that relied heavily on Panzer divisions.
U.S. Army Ordnance innovators CPT Leslie Skinner and LT Edward Uhl experimented with shaped-charge grenades that packed an armor-piercing punch, but these were too heavy for soldiers to throw.
One day, Uhl apparently spied a steel tube on a scrap pile and decided that a smoothbore launch tube was the perfect companion to the grenade. He added a rocket to the grenade, and the result was a simple—if effective—anti-tank weapon.
By May 1942, the combination became known as “Launcher, Rocket, 2.36-inch, AntiTank, M-1.”
But nobody called it that—and the contraption looked more like one of comedian Bob Burns’ novelty instruments. Burns was a popular entertainer during the era famous for blowing a tubular noisemaker called a “bazooka.” Dutch slang for “loudmouth,” the name for the joke instrument became the name of the weapon.
Optimally, the bazooka needed two people to fire it properly—a gunner who aimed and fired the rocket-propelled rounds, and a loader who carried the rounds in a cloth bandolier. The loader’s job was to load the launch tube from the back end and toggle the safety switch. An electric charge from a dry-cell battery ignited the powder charge in the rocket, the round streaked out of its tube—and flew on toward its target.
In the Pacific, heat and humidity plagued the standard bazooka’s electrical system. Soldiers and Marines who pulled the weapon’s trigger often experienced short circuits and misfires.
The bazooka produced significant “back blast”—discharge from the firing rocket that streamed out of the rear-end of the tube—that could crisp the operator or anyone standing directly behind the weapon.
The rocket-propelled round also left an obvious smoke trail that could give away the location of the shooter.
Under ideal conditions, the bazooka could hit targets up to 300-yards away. But realistically, close shots under 30-yards were far more common. This lead to a high mortality rate among gunners who often moved toward their targets to get the best shot.
However, improvements to the weapon produced the far-more reliable M-9. It had a lighter warhead and could penetrate five-inch armor—allowing it to destroy heavier armored vehicles than the M-1.
In 1944, one enterprising pilot of an L-4 observation plane even strapped three bazookas onto his aircraft during the Battle of Arracourt in France. LTC Charles Carpenter knocked out six German tanks with his improvised ground-attack plane and earned the nickname “Bazooka Charlie.”
Although intended as an anti-tank weapon, the bazooka could fire white phosphorous and incendiary warheads for anti-personnel and anti-material use. As the war progressed, bazooka users discovered the weapon worked best against emplacements and fortifications, particularly after the Germans began to weld thicker armor onto their tanks.
But overall, the weapon was so effective the bazooka received the sincerest form of flattery. The Nazis copied captured bazookas and created the Panzerschreck anti-tank rocket launcher using the American weapon’s basic design.
Although it went through different variants, the bazooka remained in use through the early stages of the Vietnam War. That’s when the M-72 light anti-weapon—or LAW—eclipsed the bazooka and became the American soldier’s rocket weapon of choice.
However, the bazooka has one remaining cultural influence in American history. Bazooka bubble gum—first introduced to the gum-chewing public in 1947—owes its ordnanceinspired name to the World War II weapon that made a big bang.
Georgia Guidestones Mystery Finally Solved And Isn’t Good
Chewing Juicy Fruit during a Border Enforcement interrogation isn’t a great idea.“Lose the gum, kiddo!” Officer McNally said, reaching for his waste basket.“Who says so?”“You’re on the Moon now,” he said, proffering the bin. “That’s our rule here.”I had one last chomp on the gum, plucked it from my mouth in a pincer movement and flicked it into the hovering receptacle.“Thank you, Erika,” McNally said, passing the bin to his fellow officer, who removed my pack of gum from the table with a sneer on her face.I lowered my eyes. “Help yourself, why don’t you?”“Now…” McNally checked his notes. “Where did we get to—-?”“You’d just asked me why I’d stowed away on an interplanetary shuttle.”“Oh, yes,” McNally said, pressing the record button. “Officers McNally and Toll resuming interview with female suspect at Moon Base Omega—-”McNally peered at me over his glasses and cleared his throat.“How about a name?” Officer Toll said, staring at me with beady avian eyes set in a granite escarpment. “Well?”“I’m Sheena. Sheena Bridge.”“A bridge too far, eh Ted?”McNally gave Toll a sideways glance.“I’ve never heard that before.”“She’s got balls, Ted.”McNally shrugged and pressed the record button again. “It’s zero-eight-hundred hours, dateline two, fifteen, twenty-forty-one. Officers McNally and Toll are with suspect Sheena Bridge, who is calm and poses neither an immediate security risk nor an obvious terrorist threat…”I never imagined I’d wake up in space, to be honest. I thought Jimmy was joking around and we’d just curl up for a couple of hours and leg it before anyone noticed us. It’s funny how things work out. However, I’m not laughing now.I guess it all started when I said, ‘But how much do you love me, Jimmy?’ and he said, ‘More than all the stars in the universe.’How do you prove a love like that? I mean, that’s a tall order for anyone.Afterwards, Jimmy told me it was supposed to be a surprise for Valentine’s Day. He just wanted to show me a sight I’d never forget. Jimmy was old-fashioned in that respect and a true romantic at heart. On a previous occasion, he’d prepared a surprise picnic and illuminated our rear garden with dozens of flickering tea-lights, leading me there blindfolded for a midnight feast. I couldn’t believe it when he whipped off the scarf. He’d transformed our scruffy garden into a glowing shrine of soft shadows and scintillating dreams.
Anyway, despite our attempts to count the stars, we never achieved a good view of the night sky because it was too cloudy, maybe not dark enough, or perhaps a sudden downpour would curtail our reverie. We’d abandon our plan, retreat to our living room carpet, and lie side by side on a tartan blanket, pretending we were shipwrecked on a deserted atoll. However, peering up at the night sky through a gap in one’s curtains doesn’t cut it. I’ve got to hand it to him, he tried. He always rose to the task, filling the room with twinkling fairy lights and shimmering candles. We both tried. We had fun trying. It’s just that, well. You know how it is? There’s always more out there. Life’s always about defining the limits.
Jimmy had been a baggage handler at Heathrow’s Terminal Eight for a year. He’d worked the night shift and knew the spaceport inside out. Jimmy had done plenty of moon shots as cargo crew and knew the routine. He’d access to all the secure areas, so a night of star watching beyond the main runway wasn’t all that intrepid, if we were careful.
To be honest, I didn’t think he was serious when he said he’d prepared a picnic and asked me to grab a bottle of fizzy. We started off the evening in the control tower’s shadow and skulked past security to the space shuttle’s hangar. There’s less light pollution being away from the city and it’s darker out there.
After we’d finished our picnic, we grabbed our blanket and basket and headed to the cargo area at the rear of Terminal Eight. We’d had a bit to drink and I remember clambering over luggage in the fuselage’s rear. I know we were daft to make out inside the shuttle. Falling asleep in each other’s arms was a big mistake, too.
When I woke up, it was dark and Jimmy was snoring beside me. I tried to bring him round, and he groaned. We soon discovered they’d locked the cargo doors prior to departure. Then, before I knew it, we were on our way. It was Jimmy who suggested chewing the Juicy Fruit. He told me it helps avoid ear ache. ‘Sudden changes in cabin pressure can be painful,’ he said.
Hours later, Jimmy nudged me awake and handed me a scarf to cover my eyes. I got to my feet, and he led me in darkness through the pressurised cargo hold. I followed Jimmy, still blindfolded and holding his hand, and we clunked our way up the creaking metal walkway until we reached the spherical observation deck and then, Wow! A three-hundred-degree view of the stars; up above and all around. It was way beyond my comprehension. A myriad of stars twinkling in the velvety darkness of the universe and infinite clusters of tiny lights that spiralled on forever more.
“Was it worth it?” asked McNally, turning to Toll, who rolled her eyes.
“God yeah! Who wouldn’t catch their breath, opening their eyes to see billions of stars in every direction?”
“Believe me,” said Toll. “It gets like wallpaper after a while—”
“You were saying?” said McNally, stroking his bristly jowls.
“I recall collapsing down on my knees and covering my open mouth with both hands. Jimmy sat down beside me and I saw a look in his eyes that I’d never seen before. His lips moved towards mine. We kissed each other. I can’t describe to you what I felt. It seemed as if my life had built in a slow crescendo to that perfect moment, and then Jimmy fumbled open a little metal box and I bit my lip…”
Toll looked up from her paperwork and gave a gentle snort.
“Then he said, ‘Marry me…’”
McNally drew a deep breath and twisted his mouth into a lopsided smirk.
“Am I in trouble?”
“Well,” he said, removing his glasses to clean them. “This happens more than you might imagine.”
“We should throw the book at her, Ted.”
I swallowed and rotated Jimmy’s precious ring on my fourth finger.
“You mean the special book, Officer Toll?” McNally extracted a two-inch thick, dusty ledger from his desk drawer, and held it aloft.
“That’s the one,” Toll smiled, staring at me. “Do your worst, McNally.”
“But we didn’t do nothing—-”
The hefty volume thudded on the table top like a body-slammed wrestler hitting the deck. I recoiled from the impact and swallowed, but my throat was dry and my eyes stung like crazy as they welled up.
Toll leaned back in her chair, extended her forearms and braced her interlocked fingers. She chuckled as her knuckles cracked under the strain, making sharp pops like chicken wishbones snapped for good luck. I imagined she enjoyed stripping down and shredding a carcass for kicks.
McNally was oblivious to her behaviour, plucked a pen from his breast pocket and flicked through the ledger’s many pages to locate the last entry.
“You need to disclose your contact details and sign the book,” he said, smoothing down a page of scrawled names and addresses. “You just joined the joyrider’s club.”
“The joyrider’s what?”
“This happens more often than you’d believe, young lady.”
“But I don’t under—-”
“We’re sending you back home with a slap on the wrist and—-
“No way…. Is that it?”
“Not unless you want a charge.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“There’re no second chances.” Toll popped the last two sticks of my Juicy Fruit between her teeth and clacked down hard. “So, don’t push it.”
Her exaggerated jaw movements continued and did little to contradict her charmless bovine manner, scoring her worthless points in a game nobody cared about.
“We’re done here, Ted.”
“Interview with suspect Sheena Bridge concluded at zero-eight-ten hours. Miss Bridge has signed all the interplanetary transportation disclaimers. Officers McNally and Toll will escort Miss Bridge onto the next available flight to Heathrow Terminal Eight. No further action required. Case closed.”
The End
Will Wang Yi eventually become China’s president?
I doubt it.
If you look at the resumes of the last three Presidents of China, you will notice some similarities. All of them had some engineering or science degrees and experience serving different positions in various governmental branches.
Xi Jinping was graduated with a chemistry-engineering degree and had been promoted through multiple levels of regional government before he reached the top.
Hu Jintao graduated with a hydraulic engineering degree and had been working in multiple levels of regional government in Xinjiang and Xizang(Tibet) before he started working in Beijing.
Jiang Zemin graduated with an electric engineering degree. He had served in various positions including the Mayor of Shanghai before he was elected the General Secretary of CCP.
Wang Yi’s resume indicates that his professional life was largely surrounding diplomacy. He has been serving in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ever since he graduated with a degree in Japanese from Beijing International Studies University. His expertise is too singular and one-demensional to be running the whole country. Furthermore, he is the same age as Xi which means that he will be too old to be nominated for the top position by the time Xi steps down.
What work secret did you accidentally find out that changed everything?
Years ago, circa 1979 I had a female coworker who was diligent, capable and very smart. In many ways she was the best employee in our then Fortune 1000 company. She and I were friendly.
One day over lunch, she said she had something to tell me. She said she was confiding in me with the hope that I would understand. I was interested but didn’t acknowledge it one way or another.
As we sat across from each other at the restaurant where we were eating lunch, she leaned across the table. Then she motioned for me to lean in too. I did. Then her expression turned from serious to dour, even frightened.
My coworker softly stated, “The company is moving our corporate headquarters.”
We worked at corporate headquarters. So I became concerned for my job as I had a wife and 2 young children to support.
I asked, “When? Is everybody moving?”
“Soon. Many will be taken. The remainder will be left. It will be up to Jack.” Jack was our manager.
I sat there silent. A bit upset. Even a little shocked. Then she added the biggest most incredible words I ever heard from anyone at work.
“The company is owned by aliens. And they will take many of us to their home planet. I was chosen.”
She Thought Cheating Was A Good Idea Until She Had To Pay Him Child Support
Lordy!
How come China lets a lot of its students go abroad? Isn’t it afraid they will come back as people prefer freedom of information and democracy?
Another stupid question about democracy, tell me, WHAT IS SO GREAT ABOUT IT? I can’t see a single benefit that we have over China, NOT A SINGLE ONE, if China was so bad, how come their government has the highest satisfaction rating on the planet? By the way, what makes you think China is NOT democratic? They have elections every five years, that tells me they are just as democratic as any other country, here in Australia we voted one government out because we weren’t happy with what they were doing, now we have a labour government, BUT NOTHING HAS CHANGED, they are still doing the same crap, at least the Chinese government changes with the times, and learn from any mistakes, here? Nothing ever changes for the better, I’m talking about our federal government, our state government is doing ok. Yes, there are always things we don’t agree with, but that’s just life,
before Morrison, I NEVER voted labour, now I will never vote anything else,
one other thing, freedom of information??? Are you serious? Which government on the planet tells their citizens everything? Why do they need an official secrets act? Just shows how stupid some questionairs are, you do see how stupid that is don’t you?
Israel’s Mossad spy agency planted a small amount of explosives inside 5000 Taiwan-made pagers ordered by Lebanese militant group Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s detonations. Is this absolutely brilliant?
The handful of videos floating around seem to show the person holding the pager being killed or injured, perhaps grievously, while those standing next to them walk away apparently unscathed. In one video, in a market, a fruit cart next to the target was not upset even the slightest.
If that lack of collateral damage was widespread, then this would indeed be a brilliant attack, advancing the state of the art in the fight against terrorism.
Of course, that “if” remains to be confirmed in a full accounting of casualties. But it appear like the attack was carefully crafted to avoid collateral damage:
The technology that was sabotaged was not that used broadly by civilians. Normal people communicate by phone, not by pagers or by 2m handy talkies.
It appears that Israel inserted their sabotaged pagers into a shipment that was going specifically to Hezbollah. It was not an a shipment that entered the retail channel, to be purchased by innocent parties.
The attack was set to occur in the mid afternoon, not in the evening when people would be at home, where the radio might be near children or other innocent parties, not during commute time, when the target might be on a crowded bus.
The nature of the attack, by sending a page notification first, encouraged the target to take the pagers in their hands and and look at it. I don’t think the average bystander would do that for a pager lying on a table. They’d say, “Hey, Ahmed, your pager is beeping.”
The attack also had all sorts of additional advantages for Israel, beyond the direct casualties:
It outs Hezbollah militia members within the communities, including those who might rather not be known. This allows the peaceful majority in Lebanon to clean up their own country.
It also outs Iranian agents in Lebanon, since those were the ones who were airlifted for medical treatment in Iran. For example, it sure is interesting that the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon had one of these pagers.
It makes Hezbollah even more paranoid about any technology they might encounter, disrupting their ability to communicate and coordinate their efforts.
It makes them engage witch hunts for internal moles, who may or may not exist, harmful to morale.
What is the nastiest home you have been in?
One of my best friends from school. She never invited me over and I was fine with that. She said she was embarassed of her family and I respect that. One day we had a fight and it got personal. She was screaming at me about the stresses of her home life and I didn’t believe her. So she let me come over.
The house was filthy. Not just messy, it was putrid. It smelled terrible. There was mouldy food left on plates everywhere. I could smell dead things that I assume were rats or mice. On the table were clearly used syringes. She showed me her bedroom. It was immaculate and smelled lovely. That was her sanctuary. Her mother was a heroin addict and used to have multiple men over. In the bathroom were used condoms tied in a knot everywhere. I felt sick looking at the hell my friend had to live with. She had to do everything for herself and I understood why she was so tired every day.
I let her move into my parents’ house with me and she lived there from 15/16–19. No matter what she will always be my sister.
Woman Commits Paternity Fraud And Instantly Regrets It
It’s Chaos As Vast Hordes Of Criminals Literally Rule The Streets In Major Cities All Over America
Did you know that gangbangers in Chicago are extremely upset because a migrant gang from South America is starting to take over territory that once belonged to them? As you will see later in this article, law enforcement authorities in Chicago have completely lost control of the Windy City, and a major gang war could erupt at any time. But of course it isn’t just Chicago that has descended into a state of complete and utter chaos. In Los Angeles, a horde of approximately 50 young criminals ruthlessly looted a 7-Eleven on Friday evening…
A group of about 50 juveniles on bikes ransacked a 7-Eleven in Pico-Robertson on Friday evening, the latest in a string of recent robberies targeting the convenience chain, authorities said.
The group of juveniles, estimated to be between ages 12 and 15, entered the store at 8500 W. Olympic Blvd. around 7:25 p.m. and stole many items, according to a Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson. Most of the juveniles had fled the scene by the time officers arrived, he said.
The reason why this incident barely even made a blip in the news cycle is because this sort of thing now happens in Los Angeles on a regular basis…
The same store was targeted — also reportedly by a group of around 50 teens on bikes — on Aug. 9, according to Fox 11 Los Angeles.
A week later, a group of young men on bikes robbed two convenience stores, reported to be 7-Elevens, in Hollywood. And on Aug. 24, a similar ransacking unfolded at a 7-Eleven in San Pedro.
In the middle of the country, the streets of Indianapolis are constantly under siege.
In fact, it is being reported that police in the city recently had to “break up five different street takeovers in 48 hours”…
Police said they were met with violent crowds when they tried to break up five different street takeovers in 48 hours in Indianapolis.
Indianapolis was once such a quiet city.
But now everything has changed.
When Indianapolis police go out to break up these “street takeovers”, they are often viciously attacked…
IMPD says officers and Indiana State Police troopers were attacked and their cars were damaged while responding to several street racing and spinning events in Indianapolis over the weekend.
The first incident was reported around 2:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 14 near East Washington and Pine streets, just east of downtown Indianapolis. Officers conducting a traffic stop saw 100-200 cars “engaged in reckless driving,” including spinning, in a parking lot, the department said in a statement.
Chaos is even reigning in major cities in the Bible Belt.
This weekend, there was a horrifying mass shooting in Birmingham, Alabama that made headlines all over the nation…
At least four people were killed and dozens more were injured when gunfire broke out in Birmingham, Alabama. Investigators believe there were multiple shooters.
“We have dozens of gunshot victims from this area,’’ police spokesman Truman Fitzgerald told the Birmingham News. “I’m told at least four of those gunshot victims are life-threatening.”
The shooting happened in the city’s popular Five Points South entertainment district. At least 17 of the gunshot victims were seriously injured.
Needless to say, there has been chaos in our streets for a long time, but now things are going to an entirely new level.
Many are blaming the surge in migration that we have been witnessing while Joe Biden has been in the White House.
Reports of shoplifting and vehicle theft increased considerably in Springfield, Ohio, following the arrival of thousands of Haitian refugees, according to data obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation through a records request.
The town, which had a population of 58,622 in 2020, has taken in between 12,000 and 20,000 Haitian refugees over the past three years, marking a population increase of between 20.4% and 34.1%. From 2021 to 2023, Springfield also saw a 51.5% jump in motor vehicle theft reports and a 112.8% spike in reports of shoplifting, data provided by the Springfield Police Division shows.
In Chicago, migration has been fueling the growth of criminal gangs, and gang members now outnumber the police by more than ten to one.
With numbers like that, there is no way that the police can maintain any sort of control.
A migrant gang from Venezuela known as Tren de Aragua is now steadily taking over territory that once belonged to local gangs, and members of those local gangs are furious because the migrants are getting far more government handouts than they are…
“There’s been a lot going on with (the migrant gangs) that nobody’s even hearing about,” Zacc Massie, 27, a street leader who first went to prison in 2015 and just recently got out.
“They be moving in our own territory and robbing people but they don’t get arrested like we do. I actually talked to one on the translator app. He told me all the things he got going on; how they helped him get a car, an apartment, (EBT) card, all this stuff. They giving them thousands, we get maybe $400 a month. And they don’t even have Social Security numbers!”
It is even being reported that teachers in Chicago elementary schools are being told to “give their migrant students a 70 percent in every subject and pass them on to the next grade” even if they don’t speak any English…
The teachers we spoke with work in CPS elementary schools and say they spoke no Spanish, while their migrant students spoke no English, making communication virtually impossible. They also added that because their schools were located in predominantly Black neighborhoods, they offered no English as a Second Language (ESL) support. Despite this, they say they were instructed by school administrators to give their migrant students a 70 percent in every subject and pass them on to the next grade.
Teachers say this was the case even if their migrant students displayed severe academic deficiencies.
The locals that have been suffering in deeply impoverished sections of Chicago for many years understand very clearly what is going on, and they are deeply frustrated.
Tensions in the city have never been higher, and one ex-gang member that has gone straight told the New York Post that it is just a matter of time before a gang war begins…
“When the black gangs here get fed up with the illegalities and criminal activities of these migrants or non-citizens, the city of Chicago is going to go up in flames and there will be nothing the National Guard or the government can do about it when the bloodshed hits the streets. It’ll be blacks against migrants.”
Law enforcement has already lost control of the streets in cities all over the country, and the violence, theft, drug dealing and sex trafficking only get worse with each passing day.
Meanwhile, millions of additional migrants come pouring into this nation illegally every single year.
Our politicians have created ideal conditions for widespread civil unrest, and once it fully erupts nobody is going to be able to control it.
My son got sentenced to 15 years in prison. He is 20 years old. I don’t want him to feel depressed and give up. Is there anything I can do for him while he is in prison?
I have done a total of 12 years locked up and I had a total of 1 visit and I had 20 dollars sent to me twice . But I didn’t complain. Yes it made things rough. What I really wanted was the Christmas cards .the birthday letters I had 3 or for letters written to me by my family. I needed those letters and that’s what he’s going to need also . Knowing he’s still loved and he has people out there waiting for him
That is what keeps the depression demons at bay .When he does get released you have to remember this isn’t the son that you knew wh we n he went in .Give him time to come around to you . Don’t try and speed up the process. He will still love you but he has had to wear a game face for quite a while. Write him letter tell him what the dogs did what you did that day. Simple stuff .
Does a human being know they’re dead once they die?
My grandmother died in the middle of the night when I was five years old. She came into my room and woke me and sat on the edge of the bed and told me that my mother was going to go through a very difficult time and even though I was so young, I was going to have to help her. When I get up the next day, I told my mother what happened and that Nana had died. 15 minutes later, my two aunts came to the door to tell my mother that she had died about the same time that she had visited me I have never had any fear of death , mostly because of this. I know there is something after we die and I know she looked strong and healthy. She had not been in life.
Does a human being know they’re dead once they die?
Yes, they do.
Similar to some other who wrote their answers, I also had experience of “not your time to die” message from when I was in a middle school and got myself to a hospital.
During some rather ordinary V-treatment I got unexpected violent allergic reaction from my body and in a matter of minutes my body temperature sky rocketed and I lost consciousness.
After this I watched from somewhere above at a ceiling and a little to a side how medical staff urgently worked around me. I knew with absolute certainty that me, my body down there, is actually dying right this moment. What was strange that my other “out-of-body-me” was not especially scared or panicked. I just was.
Then suddenly there was a sensation of rapid movement through a narrow shadowed connection to a bright light, similar to emerging in a car from a long tunnel to a sunny blindingly bright summer midday.
But just on a brink of a tunnel mouth I was stopped. Sensation of some old being, not especially unfriendly, but so vastly powerful on a completely different level, that it was scary, at least for a 12 year old girl that I was, in a way like you watch nature in action and instinctively realise your own smallness, blocked my passage with not so much a verbal but more like a direct-in your-head message “it’s not your time yet, go back”. And as soon as it hit me, I was plummeted back not instantly, but very very fast, like water swishing down a drain.
I regain consciousness not much later after this and fully recovered. No one in my family or my friends have ever known better. Medical staff never told anything to my parents, just casually mentioned that “it was some complications on the way but everything worked out just fine” to my mom when I was discharged.
I was so profoundly shocked by this experience, which I sensed has been very very private and powerful and extraordinary, that as soon as I could, I wrote it down on some crumped piece of paper with cryon drawings on other side I have found in a hospital playing room.
I remember this experience vividly even 40 years later. I was born in, raised and still live in as much an atheist society as it is possible in our historical time, and never ever believed in traditional description of hell or heaven of any world religion.
However I am inclined to believe that we are much more than just our bodies; that souls, for lack of other term to describe our inner personal self, exist and they continue to exist on some other level after our present physical bodies stop functioning.
Why is China doing absolutely NOTHING about US banning Chinese EVs? US is the second largest EV market and largest consumer market. Why is China so utterly powerless wrt US bullying?
What exactly can China do?
US has the say in who can sell things in their market can they not?
US says China shouldn’t sell EVs in their markets or sell at a 100% Tariff, so what can China do?
What is China’s Leverage?
When China banned Google and Facebook back in 2009, China was way less powerful than it is today – even so US couldn’t do anything to force China into repealing the ban on Facebook or Google
Short of starting a war, pretty much nothing China can do
The US Automobile Market is responsible for a total of 5.15 Million Jobs (Direct & Indirect) plus a further 830,000 Jobs in the Gasoline Industry plus another 173,300 Gas Stations
The US estimates a direct loss of 700,000 Jobs plus a revenue loss of $ 26 Billion a year for the Gas Stations
EVs cant match this even by 20%
So the US doesn’t want Chinese EVs
The Political Bickering has nothing to do with anything
Chinese Automobiles will sell very well in Nations which don’t have an extensive supply chain or manufacturing chain related to automobiles
This means Middle East, ASEAN, Africa, Australia, Israel, South America and Russia
This automatically excludes India & US & Germany & France & Czech Republic & Japan all of which have their own Auto Industry
They have to protect their own industries
So the obvious thing to do would be to create their own EVs and get their own supply chain
Plus since US has loads of Oil and Gasoline, it really isn’t forced to use EVs like say India does
Are Chinese people aware that their government is an authoritarian dictatorship?
Absolutely, there’s no question about it. None of us believe this is a democratic country, but at the same time, none of us think it’s truly a communist country either—which might be hard for you to believe.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the government hasn’t tried to brainwash us. But, strangely enough, even the government doesn’t seem to be putting much effort into it. Everyone is fully aware of the brainwashing attempts but plays along without actually buying into it.
This might be difficult to grasp if you’ve never been to China, but I tend to have a feeling that most of us here are pragmatists. We tolerate the situation as long as we believe the government is improving our lives, which, by most accounts, it seems to be doing.
I tend to think that an authoritarian regime can result in either extremely high outcomes when the leadership makes the right decisions, or in catastrophic failures when they don’t. In the former case, societal efficiency is massively improved, while in the latter, it can lead to disaster.
People in China make their own judgments about these outcomes. Those who are content with the situation stay and support the government, while those who aren’t satisfied simply leave and move to another country.
Personally, I’m quite satisfied with how my life has improved in recent years. So, I’m still here, living in China, steering clear of politics and focusing on my own life.
What happens to a Chinese person if he/she stands up in support of the Uyghurs?
I was born in Xinjiang, I was raised there, my entire childhood was living with Uyghurs, they are my neighbours.
I stand up and support them, so as our Govt (this may sound weird). They’re free to go to Mosque, they’re free to give births as many as they wish without be restricted by one child policy, their children will get 50 extra points in College entry exam (20 after 2018’s new policy, with a perfect score ranging roughly from 600 to 750 depending on where you take the exam), and their language are taught in schools and printed on bank notes.
When I was in high school, we have 20 classes in our grade, 10 of them are Uyghur classes. When Olympic Torch came to Xinjiang, our school picked a few Uyghur students as student representatives.
I bet most people from Western don’t know this, and Suddenly they stood up and fought for the Uyghur people? When Islamic terrorism happened in Xinjiang, moderate Mulism people were also suffering from terrorism too, where are their voice by then?
Everything Is A Rip Off, It’s Not Even Worth Going Out Anymore
Apparently, Zelensky’s victory plan is 1. Ukraine admitted to NATO. 2. Russians run home in panic? Is membership possible or likely and would it work if Ukraine got in?
Has Nato mobilized and transitioned into a war economy?
Other than record stock markets and eye-catching gdp, Nato is embroiled in economic malaise, and in no shape to meet Nato spending targets in peacetime, let alone massive war spending.
Besides, the current conflict in Ukraine has already emptied the accumulated war reserve of Nato, and they are now sending active arms in use.
Is Nato is any shape to confront Russia today on a one for all, all for one basis? Do Nato leaders desire such a confrontation?
Russia has mobilized >2m men, and is outproducing Nato in war materiel by multiples.
Ukraine joining Nato is but a couple of signatures on paper. We have seen Ukraine being fractured and Volodymyr cheered without Ukraine cashing the empty check of membership dangled for decades in front of the sacrificial Ukrainian lambs.
Fantasy sold to the gullible is what got us into this mess of overreach.
When the Russians say no, they are prepared to shed blood for it.
Question is, is Nato prepared to shed rivers of blood too, or are they mistaking the Russian bear for a pesky fly destined to meet the fly swatter?
Remembering an NDE
My sister and I were at my late father’s side at home when he passed in December 2014. He was 95 years old and knew he was going to die as he was on hospice care.
He was completely lucid and alert up until he passed.
On his last day he dozed on and off while my sister and I slept in his room – me on a futon and she on the twin bed in the room. Dad was on a hospital bed that replaced the other twin bed. Before I dozed off, I asked him how he was and if he felt he were dying (I know it is a weird question to ask but we are very open in our family).
He said that he just felt very tired and as to dying he said he didn’t really know what to expect as he never went through it before.
We knew he was dying as his taste for foods changed about 2 weeks prior and he was hurrying to get last minute affairs in order to make sure our inheritance was divided evenly – which he achieved to the dollar.
I was awakened during the early morning – about 2 am by my sister who noticed that he was picking at his blankets and acting restless.
I phoned the hospice nurse who guided me through the process of assisting and comforting him through the dying process. He was still completely aware of his surroundings.
I asked him how he was doing and if he needed anything just to keep communicating with him.
My sister and I were holding his hands and telling him how much we loved him and would miss him. He said, he was very tired and as to the dying part, he still didn’t know what to expect. He was very weak. Then he dozed for a while. Then all of a sudden he squeezed both our hands and as if he were answering our question about dying, weakly said, “Home, home……” and then he passed.
It was a sacred experience for us and a comfort to hear he was going to a good place, but we still miss him terribly.
Is China safe for tourists?
I am BLACK 1m.89cm tall, Point i am not able to just keep a low profile. In the dozen plus trips too China . I will say this; I walk in the street during late even, or early (am) morning hours to get my relax time. I stop at stalls without a single word of understandable mandarin buy street food and never had a stall owner short change me..[I know the currency and prices ]. I Window shop and buy things to bring home for my friend as gifts.
This is my experience .
I have never felt for a single moment I was at risk, Walking the back streets out of curiosity, people look, even intently but never made me feel uncomfortable . Maybe because I stay only in Top hotels the area i walk are better managed or policed. ( Was asked once if i needed help from two officer and when i said i was just walking to relax they left me and moved on..Awesome Not asking for ID or where i am going what i am doing out in the am. EU and USA did not treat me so well, and i speak a few of these languages.
I am not looking to be a trader or make a female friend Maybe this has something to do with my absolutely awesome stays .
Chinese people are racist, its ignorance more than malice. Chines people have attitude, but i am sure i do also.
But Chinese people do not hate me because of my colour ,,,Misinformation makes then negative in expectations and okay i am not poor so maybe i carry myself with the confidence of I need nothing from China , Happy to visit as long as China is happy to accept my freedom to be me every second of the day. Black and proud. But i am not poor anywhere in the world but am treated not so well .
I will always feel China is a GREAT place to visit if you do not wish to spread a political view. China has so many millions of beautiful place and interesting places ,I am sure i will have hundreds of trips .Thank you China for my Experience as a tourist..
Me & the kids were mocking him for being a weak father, until he got fed up, became furious & then
“Wake up Alice, we have reached the null point”Alice sat up straight, wiping a bit of drool from her mouth. “What?”“The Captain’s input is needed, Alice. The coordinates are already set.”“Hey Wonder, uhh I wasn’t sleeping.”“Sleeping? I didn’t say you were!” Wonder joked. “I don’t even know what sleeping is. How would I? I never sleep.”“Okay, smartbutt computer. Just give me the calculations of the jump”“It’s on your HUD right now. No need to check. I ran the numbers myself,” Wonder said.Alice leaned forward and tapped the HUD. The map expanded to show multiple solar systems. “Did you calculate the balance of the cargo?”“I’ll admit, I rounded up to the third decimal place. Well within margin,” Wonder explained.Alice brought out her stylus and moved some numbers around. “What is the cargo this time?”“That’s classified under the RED initiative.”“Okay, can you at least tell me if it’s solid, fluid or gas? These things matter when jumping through the ather.” Alice explained.“Sorry, I cannot provide any details, as they are classified.”“Fine, the math looks good. Prepare for ather jump,” Alice conceded.“All systems green, standing by for the captain’s input.”Alice leaned forward and stared at the big red jump button. She pressed her palm down and the ship made a Ker-chunk sound as the jump engines fired up. “And the under paid monkey presses the button” she said.“Hole to the ather is open. Shields are steady,” Wonder reported. The ship pointed toward the glowing hole in space and lurched forward. The 1-DR was not a pretty ship to look at, but it was a useful one. Designed with functionality over aesthetics. All long, with dark lines broken up by exterior propulsion engines. They buzzed, spilling plasma out into space. Alice buckled into her captain’s seat. The transfer to ather space was never a smooth ride. This isn’t some luxury line ship meant to make people comfortable. It moved freight and did it cheaply.“Hitting ather space in 3…2…1” Wonder counted down. The entire ship lurched and moaned as it crossed over. Alice brought up the ship status on her HUD. Before she even had time to look at it, the lights went red and an alarm siren blasted, making Alice cringe reflexively. She silenced the alarm with the push of a button.“Wonder status,” Alice demanded.“We have lost coupling on the aft cargo hold.”“Can you give me visual?”“On the HUD now” The screen glowed with a swirl of purples and red of ather space. Alice moved the camera to see the cargo container. It hung on by a single coupling and flailed wildly.
“Give me manual control” The chair moved back and dual joysticks raised up. She took hold and moved the ship. She turned and rotated until the cargo no longer bounced around. Physics in space are weird, physics in the ather are impossible. The ship was now turned sideways, but still moving in the same direction. As long as she could keep the ship in the ather’s slipstream, it would be fine.
“Starboard engine took damage.” Wonder informed Alice. “On this trajectory we will slide out of the slip in thirty seconds.”
Alice sighed. Drop the cargo or drop out into ather space. She thought about it and quickly decided. Turned the engines off and allow the ship to drift. With the damage done to the engine, there was no telling if she could correct the path either way. Losing the cargo was not an option while working with RED either. Lost cargo means a fine and who knows how big the fine is with the classification placed on it. The ship rumbled as it left the slipstream moving into a thicker ather.
“Great, repair options for the engine?” Alice asked.
“Working on it.”
Alice’s HUD displayed a warning. Shields at 75% It read.
“Work faster” She screamed. “The ather is pressing in on the ship.”
“Yeah yeah. Don’t get your undies in a bunch,” Wonder said with a laugh.
“What? Wonder I need a solution. Can I space walk to repair it?”
“Space walking in the ather will get you deader than your sense of humor!”
“What has gotten into you?”
“I apologize Alice, it seems the effects of ather are causing me to malfunction.”
“Stupid AI, you can’t break now too.”
“Have you tried turning me off and back on again?”
Alice got up from the captain’s chair. She grabbed a tool case from the closet and headed into the bay. She checked a status screen as she walked by. Shields 60% it read.
“Wonder can I get to any of the parts from the interior of the ship.”
“Panel thirteen – seven. Look for the big red glowy light. That will be the thing. They always have glowy lights to let you know if they are bad.”
Alice turned down a hallway and caught sight of something white and quick moving just around the next corner.
“Wonder, is there anyone else on the ship?” She asked.
“Its just me and you forever baby!”
Alice let out a long sigh. “Is any of our cargo biological? Animals maybe?”
“Sorry that’s classified,” Wonder answered.
“Oh, now you can be serious?”
“Sorry, even I can’t read it. I’m looking at the file on our cargo right now. It just says classified.”
“There is something else on the ship.” Alice explained.
“Nah bro, you are going crazy.”
“What?” Alice said incredulously
“Mild effects of aether poisoning. Step one insanity, step two coming to terms with insanity, step three, the fun part.”
Alice grunted. She knew she needed to move faster before she was useless. She found the panel and removed it. The array of wires and pipes hid circuit boards. She found the one with the red light. She unplugged it and plugged it back in. The light turned off and back red again. Alice frowned. She unplugged the module. Probably didn’t need it, anyway. Alice turned around and jumped. There in the middle of the hall sat a small white rabbit. They stared at each other for a moment. The rabbit took off down the hall and around the corner.
“No, you don’t,” Alice said and chased the rabbit around the corner. She skid to a halt at the table before her. Alice found herself in a large, ornate room. She gawked at the white walls and wooden furnishing. Where was she? This isn’t a room on the ship. Worst of all, there were people sitting at the table, pouring cups of tea.
“Hello” she intoned.
“Oh, hello Alice,” the man at the head of the table said. He wore a purple suit with a tall hat. “Tea?” He asked, gesturing with a steaming teakettle.
“Uh, no thank you.” She said, looking shocked.
“Please sit. You know my friend, the white rabbit.” He gestured to a rabbit sitting on the table. It had its own cup of tea and cookie. It looked up as if acknowledging her.
“H-Hello.”
“And this here is our lead ship mechanic. Scoots.” The man in the suit said.
A short, pudgy man in a black suit and bowler cap looked over at her. “Ma’am.” He said, tipping his hat.
“And I of course, am the ever present Wonder.”
“Wonder? You’re the ship AI?”
“In the flesh!”
“I don’t understand. We don’t have a ship mechanic, and you are an AI. Don’t even get me started on the rabbit!”
“It is very easy to explain, sweetie. You see, you are quite mad.”
“Mad?” she asked.
“Insane, the ather has broken through the shield and you are undergoing the effects. Have a seat, enjoy yourself.“
“I don’t know.” She said, sitting down, “If I am insane, then how can I sit in a chair that isn’t real, smell the tea that isn’t there? Even the light of this room, I can feel it.”
“Well, the ather does weird things to all of us,” Wonder Explained
“For sure,” Scoots chimed in.
The rabbit just looked at her. Alice knew what it was saying.
She held her cup as Wonder poured some tea. “So what do I do now?”
“Well, you have two choices, really. You can get the ship back into the slipstream and finish your delivery. Do the next delivery and then do the next. Until you die. Or Ooooooor. You can stay in the ather and explore what is in this new space. You, me, scoots, the rabbit can come too.”
Alice sipped her tea. “You make a good point, but what if this is just the insanity talking? What if there is nothing out there to explore?”
Wonder leaned back in his chair. “Well honey. I will admit, I am biased. I have always wanted to see you like this. With my own eyes, I mean. Not through a camera, not through you pushing buttons.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I want to be with you, exploring. Ya know, like this.” Wonder gestured to the table.
“I say we stay,” Scoots said.
“And Mr Rabbit, what do you have to say?” Alice asked. The rabbit reached up to it’s cup and took a sip. It looked over, wiggling its nose. “I’m sold.” She said. Alice stood up and grabbed her cup. Let’s go to the helm and see what’s out there.
“You’re the captain,” Wonder said grabbing his cup a handful of cookies. They all together walked to the helm. Alice sat down in the pilot seat and grabbed the joysticks.
“We need repairs, lets see if we can find a place to land.” Alice said. Wonder took up a position in a newly formed station in the helm. “I see a planet on the scanners.”
“I can see an asteroid belt around that planet.” Scoots chimed in from the maintenance station that was suddenly there.
“How can there be a planet in the ather?” Alice asked.
“Lets find out.” Wonder answered.
Italian Beef Stir Fry
Few ingredients – fast and flavorful!
966bf17696463b048acd636c86d32685
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
1 pound beef top tip steaks, cut 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 small zucchini, thinly sliced
1 cup cherry tomato halves
1/4 cup fat-free bottled Italian salad dressing
2 cups hot cooked spaghetti
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
Cut beef steaks crosswise into 1 inch wide strips. Cut each strip crosswise in half.
Heat oil in large nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Add garlic and stir while cooking 1 minute.
Add half of the beef strips. stir fry for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes or until no longer pink.
Remove with slotted spoon and keep warm.
Repeat with remaining beef strips.
Add zucchini to same skillet. stir fry for 2 to 3 minutes or until tender-crisp.
Return beef to skillet with tomato halves and dressing. Heat through.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Serve beef mixture over hot pasta.
Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.
Attribution
From the kitchen of Martin James – Copenhagen, Denmark
An NDE story
That is a wonderful question, I think. I have wanted to share my experience concerning this topic since my 31 y.o. son died from oral cancer in 2019. He had just finished his associate’s degree in 2017 and got the diagnosis 5 months later.
Since 2017, he suffered through multiple surgeries, bleeding, chemo, radiation, immense pain, huge weight loss, and inability to speak. He was stoic through it all. He truly believed in the afterlife and reincarnation before 2017 and during his cancer ordeal. He read so many philosophical books and fought &*)$ing cancer so hard.
I have never shared this with anyone besides my younger son. This is what happened; You see, my son passed on to his next life on April 3rd, 2019.
But he died on March 30, 2019. I woke up on that morning (April 3rd) and I had the MOST USUAL feeling about him. It’s very hard to explain. I am NOT joking, but it was like he had just left us here in this life. I immediately thought “He just moved on”.
Sounds crazy, I know. I was so emotional I started crying. I thought, my son is gone now, but it was a much more intense feeling than the 3 days before. On March 30th, all I could think about was that he wasn’t in excruciating pain anymore and how it was going to affect my youngest son. They were so close and 7 years apart in age. Yes, I may have been just going through the grief cycle and all but I truly believe that he entered his next life that April morning when I woke up. It was like “someone” or “something” had shared with me that he had just moved on and he was ok. It sounds crazy and all but I had never felt it before or since. It’s ok if no one believes me, but I know what I felt. I am positive there is a Life after Life.
If Our Cities Already Look Like They Belong In “Grand Theft Auto”, What Will They Look Like Once The Economy Implodes?
As you will see below, video footage that was just captured on the streets of Philadelphia looks like it could have been pulled out of an extremely violent video game. If this is what our streets look like now, what are they going to look like once economic conditions become very harsh in this country? Just a few days ago, I wrote about the tremendous chaos that is erupting in cities all over America. When I wrote that article, I wasn’t even aware of the drama that had just played out in the city of Philadelphia. From late on Saturday night through the early hours of Sunday morning, there were multiple clashes with police as authorities attempted to break up a series of illegal street takeovers…
Philadelphia continues its spiral into chaos under Democratic leadership, with violent mobs once again taking to the streets, this time attacking police officers and patrol cars in a brazen display of lawlessness.
According to reports from 6 ABC, hundreds of cars and massive crowds participated in illegal car meetups, causing widespread chaos that lasted from 9:30 p.m. Saturday until 4:30 a.m. Sunday.
At least 11 meetups took place, six of which turned into violent confrontations with police. The mayhem resulted in the hospitalization of one officer, while five police cars were heavily damaged.
These kids are completely and utterly out of control.
One of them even had a flamethrower that he used to create a ring of fire in the middle of one major intersection.
And when the police arrived at these events, these kids were not afraid to attack them at all…
“Everything they do is disruptive, they’re ruining the quality of life. At one point, they had a flamethrower—yes, there’s video with a flamethrower.”
“They’re able to disperse quickly and then reform at other locations. That’s why we have officers dedicated. It’s playing wack-a-mole. We hit them at once, and they move to another,” he added.
“It was the aggressiveness at some of the locations — the incident outside of City Hall was aggressive. They physically went after our officers,” Cram said. “They don’t care about your safety, their own safety. You’ve all seen the videos of their behavior. How much chaos can they cause?”
A member of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang was arrested in a tiny Wisconsin community for allegedly sexually assaulting a mother and abusing her daughter after he had been arrested and released earlier this year in Minneapolis.
Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden, whose grandchildren live less than a mile away from the Prairie du Chien home where the mother and daughter were held against their will and repeatedly victimized, told Fox News Digital that it was only a matter of time before tragedy would strike the community amid the White House’s open-border policies and sanctuary city initiatives.
All of this chaos is going to play a major role in how these swing states vote.
People are afraid of what they see in the streets, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.
If things are this bad now, what is our society going to look like once economic conditions get really bad?
Yes, economic conditions are not good at all right now.
This is something that I have documented extensively.
But as bad as things are at this moment, the truth is that this is going to look like rip-roaring prosperity compared to what is coming.
Sadly, there are lots of signs that the economy is starting to move in the wrong direction quite rapidly now.
For example, it is being reported that U.S. consumer confidence just dropped by the largest amount in over three years…
Consumers’ view on the economy tumbled in September, falling by the largest level in more than three years as fears grew about jobs and business conditions, the Conference Board reported Tuesday.
The board’s consumer confidence index slid to 98.7, down from 105.6 in August, the biggest one-month decline since August 2021. The Dow Jones consensus forecast was for a reading of 104. By contrast, the index had a reading of 132.6 in February 2020, a month before the Covid pandemic hit.
Each of the five components the organization samples fared worse on the month, with the biggest fall coming among those aged 35-54 and earning less than $50,000.
US banks have closed more than 50 branches in just two weeks, as the march towards online banking continues to decimate local services.
Wells Fargo, Chase, and Fulton were among the banks who closed locations between August 19 and September 7.
Bank of America and Chase gave notice to close the most locations, notifying the regulator that they will shut a further twelve of their branches each.
Every week, more branches are disappearing, and that should deeply alarm all of us.
Of course the exact same thing could be said about retail stores.
Sadly, the very last full-size Kmart store in the continental United States is about to close forever…
The last full-size Kmart store in the continental United States is set to close in October, leaving only one downsized location remaining, reports say.
The department store chain, which once operated around 2,300 locations in the early 1990s, will shutter the full-size store in Bridgehampton, New York, on Oct. 20, Newsday is reporting, citing an employee there.
That means a smaller Kmart store in Miami will become the last one remaining in the U.S. Kmart, which is now owned by Transformco, also has three stores in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
As economic conditions deteriorate, millions of impoverished people that inhabit our major cities are going to become extremely desperate.
And extremely desperate people do extremely desperate things.
We are already seeing so much chaos all over the nation, but what is ahead is going to be so much worse.
I playfully mocked him during our lovemaking about his size, he got shocked, left and then did this.
